TAO -> Trusted Issuer (TI)

Learn about structuring Verifiable Accreditations from a Trusted Accreditation Organisation (TAO) to a Trusted Issuer (TI) on cheqd.

A Trusted Accreditation Organisation (TAO) can delegate authority to Trusted Issuers (TIs) by issuing them Verifiable Accreditations. These accreditations grant permission to issue specific types of Verifiable Attestations — such as diplomas, licences, or professional credentials — within the boundaries of a defined governance framework.

The Verifiable Accreditation should include:

Field	Description	Example
Issuer	DID of the TAO	did:cheqd:testnet:e66a9416-d03e-4ced-95e3-07af16e25bc5
Subject	DID of the Trusted Issuer that is being accredited	did:cheqd:testnet:f6e731f0-5bfb-429b-b2c7-e65a951d7b5e
Credential Subject	A set of structured permissions around what credentials the Trusted Issuer is accredited to issue, and in which jurisdiction.	See below
Terms of use	A set of policies setting out the scope of Trust Chain for Relying parties to validate against.	See below

Permissions

Root TAOs can set permissions under which TAOs must abide. This creates a level of codified governance for the trust ecosystem.

"credentialSubject": {
    "id": "did:cheqd:testnet:e66a9416-d03e-4ced-95e3-07af16e25bc5",
    "accreditedFor": [
      {
        "schemaId": "did:cheqd:testnet:8ea036da-f340-480d-8952-f5561ea1763c/resources/b10146d7-0d0f-41e0-8ee3-c76db64890be",
        "types": [
          "VerifiableCredential",
          "VerifiableAttestation",
          "DiplomaCredential"
        ],
        "limitJurisdiction": "https://publications.europa.eu/resource/authority/atu/FIN"
      }
    ]
  },

Field descriptions:

Field	Description
id	The DID of the Trusted Issuer receiving the accreditation
schemaId	The schema the TI is authorised to use for issuing credentials
types	Credential types the TI is allowed to issue
limitJurisdiction	(Optional) Limits issuance to a specific jurisdiction

Policies

The termsOfUse field contains the AccreditationPolicy, which provides governance context by linking to both the TAO’s parent accreditation and the root authorisation of the trust chain.

"termsOfUse": {
    "type": "AccreditationPolicy",
    "parentAccreditation": "did:cheqd:testnet:8ea036da-f340-480d-8952-f5561ea1763c/resources/18de60ec-bed1-42e5-980c-601c432bc60b",
    "rootAuthorisation": "did:cheqd:testnet:8ea036da-f340-480d-8952-f5561ea1763c/resources/18de60ec-bed1-42e5-980c-601c432bc60b"
  }

Whereby:

Field	Description
type	Must be AccreditationPolicy
parentAccreditation	The DID URL of the Accreditation issued by another TAO or the Root TAO to the TAO
rootAuthoroisation	The DID URL of the Root of Trust Verifiable Authorsation

For all Verifiable Accreditations, the accreditations are stored as DID-Linked Resources (DLRs), linked to the DID of the Accreditor. This means that the Accreditations are publically available, fully DID resolvable and are signed by the authentication keys within the DID Document of the Accreditor.

DID-Linked Resources

Learn about cheqd's approach to implementing DID-Linked Resources

To issue a Verifiable Accreditation, follow the tutorial below:

Issue Verifiable Accreditation

Issue a Verifiable Accreditation to start a trust registry on cheqd