Trust Identity Protocol, presented to the IEEE SA Industry Connections activity on New Foundations of Trust
IEEE SA Industry Connections | New Foundations of Trust
Trust Identity Protocol
Proof of who made what, for digital communication, interactions and transactions.
The problem
Every digital interaction now asks two questions. Who made this, and has it changed?
AI can copy a face, a voice and a writing style in seconds. A logo or a profile photo proves nothing.
When a platform labels content, the label stays on that platform. Repost the work elsewhere and the proof is gone.
Published estimates of the qubits needed to break RSA-2048 fell from 20 million in 2019 to under 100,000 in 2026.
What TIP is
Two records, signed with post-quantum keys, checkable by anyone for free.
TIP-ID
A verified identity for a person or an organization, bound to a signing key that never leaves their own device.
CTID, Content TIP ID
A Verifiable Asset is any piece of digital content that carries a CTID (Content TIP ID): a permanent, signed public record of who made it, when, how it was made, and a fingerprint that shows whether it has changed since.
An open standard. The specification is published under CC BY 4.0, verification is free for everyone, and the protocol is governed by the AI Trust Council.
A live example
Tap the badge, see the proof.
These are real records on the TIP Network today. Open them yourself.
How a TIP-ID is created, on vp.theailab.org
Government ID, four live challenges, a post-quantum key born on the device, and a zero-knowledge proof. About a minute for the person.
How a CTID is created, on LinkedIn
The browser extension works where people already publish. The network records the post's fingerprint and signature, not its text.
What anyone can check
The creator declares how the work was made. The record keeps them to it.
The verified TIP-ID that signed it.
A timestamp and the declared origin.
A fingerprint any copy can be checked against.
A false label stays on the signer's permanent record, and anyone can dispute it. TIP proves where content came from. It does not prove the content is true.
The cryptography
Post-quantum from the first signature, built on NIST and W3C standards.
| Job | Primitive | Where it is used |
|---|---|---|
| Signatures | ML-DSA-65, NIST FIPS 204 | Every TIP-ID key and every content signature. The Verification Provider also countersigns each identity it registers. |
| Fingerprints | SHAKE-256, NIST FIPS 202 | Content fingerprints, signed payloads, and the TIP-ID itself, which is derived from the public key. |
| Key at rest | AES-256-GCM | The private key is encrypted on the device. The lock key is derived from the person's passkey through WebAuthn PRF. |
| Unlock | WebAuthn passkey | Face ID or fingerprint, with user verification required. The private key never leaves the device. |
| One person, one ID | Groth16 zero-knowledge proof | Proves a government ID has not been used before, without sending the ID number or date of birth. |
| Same words, same proof | CNA-2 normalization | Formatting, links and platform markup are stripped before hashing, so a post fingerprints the same everywhere. |
Privacy by design
The TIP Network holds proofs, not people.
Public keys, signatures, content fingerprints, origin labels and timestamps. A person's name only if they choose to show it on what they sign.
Private keys, which stay on the person's device. Government ID numbers and dates of birth, which travel only as a zero-knowledge proof.
We do not store your face image. It is used once to confirm you match your ID, then deleted right after processing. Nobody can retrieve it later, including us.
Governance
The AI Trust Council® governs the protocol in public.
22 members, seven advisors and two ambassadors across the United States, the United Kingdom, Ireland, New Zealand, the Philippines, India and Spain.
Creators, Institutions, Publishers, Operators and Partners, each with a voice on protocol matters.
Convened May 3, 2026 under a public Charter and Bylaws. Founding Chair Joshua Baron, formerly a Senior Program Officer at the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation.
The AI Lab is the Council's Founding Steward and does not vote on protocol matters. Meet the Council
Why we are here
“Better reliability, security and trust in communication, collaboration, interaction and transaction between two entities via digital means.” Scope of this Industry Connections activity, IEEE SA
People and organizations hold TIP-IDs today, each verified once and bound to their own device.
A post, article, video or document carries a checkable origin wherever it travels.
Either side can verify the other for free, without trusting a platform.
We would welcome this group's review of the open TIP specification as input to its recommendations, and a pilot of signed communication between member organizations.
Where TIP is today
Live since October 5, 2026.
Rooverse is the first social platform to adopt TIP. Iffel International is building it into its One Brain CRM.
USPTO registrations for TIP, Trust Identity Protocol and AI Trust Council. A whitepaper with a DOI on Zenodo.
The Quantum Insider, Quantum Zeitgeist and ForkLog covered the launch, and the release ran on National Law Review and USA TODAY Network sites.
Members of NVIDIA Inception, AWS Activate and Anthropic's Claude for Startups.
Thank you
Prove what is real.