Introducing the project “Business Unit ID and its Digital Certification Platform” from SBI Holdings, Inc in Trusted Web’s 2023 “Use Case Demonstration Project for Realization of Trusted Web”

Business Description

The project “Business Unit Identity and its Digital Certification Platform” aims to improve the trustworthiness of cross-industry and cross-border supply chain information by using a business unit ID to guarantee the existence of business units and the authenticity of the digital information that passes between them.

• Business Unit ID
  • Refers to a digital certificate that verifies the identity of the Business Unit.
  • This digital certificate, linked to the Decentralized Identifier (DID) created by the Holder, is a verifiable digital certificate digitally signed by a trusted third party, a.k.a. Verifiable Credentials (VC).
• Digital Certification Platform
  • In this pilot project, Digital Certificate Organizations are hypothetically approved as trusted third parties by the Accreditation Organization. They issue digital certificates (VC) as proof of certification.
  • The Digital Certificate Organization issues, renews and revokes Business Unit IDs for Business Units.
  • Accreditation Organizations, Digital Certificate Organizations and their functions are collectively referred to as the “Digital Certification Platform.”
• Business Unit
  • Applies for issuance of Business Unit ID from the Digital Certificate Organization.
  • By encapsulating data such as product information found in existing systems inside the Business Unit’s Verifiable Presentation (VP), we can verify the trustworthiness of such data.

 (Note) Definition of Business Unit VP in this Pilot

The Verifiable Presentation (VP) issued by the Business Unit refers to a set of digital certificates containing the Business Unit VC and information it wants to prove the authenticity on (assumed to be converted into a VC) .
 

Social and Economic Value

In rules proposed one after another, such as the EU Battery Regulation led by the EU and the draft of the Ecodesign for Sustainable Products Regulation (ESPR), along with the Digital Product Passport (DPP), demands for the trustworthiness of supply chains, products, and services are increasingly growing.
The mechanisms proposed in this pilot project, along with the concurrent international standardization efforts, aim to reduce the time and cost required for compliance and verification of these regulations. It is expected that this will ensure the authenticity of product components (such as BOM information) and information related to quality assurance.

• Social Value
  • Guarantee of authenticity of digital information exchanges between Business Units
  • Improvement of trustworthiness of cross-industry, cross-sector and cross-border supply chains.
  • Elimination of counterfeit goods
• Economic Value
  • Reduction in costs of ensuring trustworthiness
  • Reduction in countermeasure costs and damages in the event of tampered information or the inclusion of counterfeit goods

Issues solved by Web Implementation

 
Application’s System Architecture Overview

Materials related to the Use Cases

■　Case 1 (On-Boarding)
When entering into a new contract with a business partner, create a VP containing the Business Unit ID and the contract. The counterparty can confirm the authenticity by verifying the VP (confirmation of the certificate) without separately conducting Due Diligence (DD) on the business unit.




■　Case 2 (On-Going)
When ICT manufacturers purchase products such as network equipments from multiple suppliers (including overseas), the supplier creates a VP containing the product’s VC and the business unit ID (to prove the product’s manufacturer). The buyer can confirm the authenticity of the product through verifying the VP (confirmation of the certificate).




References

【1】EU Battery Regulation

電池のライフサイクル全体を規定するバッテリー規則施行(EU) | ビジネス短信 ―ジェトロの海外ニュース - ジェトロ (jetro.go.jp)
EUR-Lex - 32023R1542 - EN - EUR-Lex (europa.eu)
 
【2】Ecodesign for Sustainable Products Regulation（ESPR）and DPP（Digital Product Passport）：
欧州委、循環型経済を推進するためのエコデザイン規則案を発表(EU) | ビジネス短信 ―ジェトロの海外ニュース - ジェトロ (jetro.go.jp)
EUR-Lex - 52022PC0142 - EN - EUR-Lex (europa.eu)　
※DPP is mentioned in Chapter III, Article 8 and Annex III.

Documents

• summary（Link）
• demonstration（YouTube）