FAQ's  All the things to know

These are our most frequently asked questions.

TANZ develops tools and protocols to help the New Zealand primary sector use a digital network to build and strengthen trust. The goal of TANZ is enabling farmers to store, protect and share their data more effectively. Common industry challenges are identified by our members and addressed by sharing data in a trusted and permissioned way.

  • In the TANZ model, verifiable data sits at the centre.
  • Whenever a transaction is sent across the network from one member to another, all the members must agree that it’s a valid transaction from an authorised party.
  • TANZ members are often farmer owned organisations. These organisations issue data that the farmer can use with a relying party. The farmer can use a farm enterprise wallet either to store farm data it receives from an issuer and passes this data to a relying party or permission an issuer to transfer data to a relying party.
  • TANZ members decide on the tools and protocols for the issuing and relying of farm data.
  • TANZ never “sees” any data only the holder of the data controls who sees or uses the data.
  • TANZ data becomes very powerful for audit, compliance, and trust purposes.
  • TANZ has adopted self-sovereign identity as a core principle.

 

You will be contributing to the Trust Alliance NZ (TANZ) network and be involved in shaping the consortium, its policies and the technology. Making use of the expertise, knowledge and learnings between members in an easy and cost-effective way.

Community

  • Invited to attend TANZ Meetings
  • Recognition as being a Trust Alliance NZ Member & ability to use the Trust Alliance NZ trademark
  • Gain access to TANZ members use cases and observe how implementation is being achieved.
  • Such other benefits as may be conferred from time to time by the Society
  • Access to tools and protocols to create Verifiable Credentials (VC) and Decentralised Identifiers  (DID’s)

TANZ is focussing on decentralised technology, the intention is being agnostic and collaborate interchangeable with other decentralised technologies. At the core of the technology used in the TANZ network are digital identities, wallets, verifiable credentials, verifiable presentations, issuers and relying parties.

A Digital Identity is information used by computer systems to represent a person, organization, application, or device. A digital identity enables these to be recognised online.

What is a verifiable presentation?

Presentations MAY be used to combine and present credentials. They can be packaged in such a way that the authorship of the data is verifiable. Therefore the name verifiable presentation. The data in a presentation is often all about the same subject, but there is no limit to the number of subjects or issuers in the data. The aggregation of information from multiple verifiable credentials is a typical use of verifiable presentations.

A digital wallet is a software module which can sit inside a mobile application or a web browser for securely storing and accessing private data, private keys, and other sensitive cryptographic material. It holds verifiable credentials which can be used to create a verifiable presentation. Click here for more information World Wide Web Consortium (W3C)

In the physical world, a credential might consist of:

  • Information related to identifying the subject of the credential (for example, a photo, name, or identification number)
  • Information related to the issuing authority (for example, a city government, national agency, or certification body)
  • Information related to the type of credential this is (for example, a Dutch passport, an American driving license, or a health insurance card)
  • Information related to specific attributes or properties being asserted by the issuing authority about the subject (for example, nationality, the classes of vehicle entitled to drive, or date of birth)
  • Evidence related to how the credential was derived
  • Information related to constraints on the credential (for example, expiration date, or terms of use).

A verifiable credential can represent all of the same information that a physical credential represents. The addition of technologies, such as digital signatures, makes verifiable credentials more tamper-evident and more trustworthy than their physical counterparts.

Holders of verifiable credentials  usually stored in a digital wallet can generate verifiable presentations and then share these verifiable presentations with verifiers to prove they possess verifiable credentials with certain characteristics.

Both verifiable credentials and verifiable presentations can be transmitted rapidly, making them more convenient than their physical counterparts when trying to establish trust at a distance.

Presentations MAY be used to combine and present credentials. They can be packaged in such a way that the authorship of the data is verifiable. Therefore the name verifiable presentation. The data in a presentation is often all about the same subject, but there is no limit to the number of subjects or issuers in the data. The aggregation of information from multiple verifiable credentials is a typical use of verifiable presentations.

Self-sovereign identity (SSI) is an approach to digital identity that gives individuals control over the information they use to prove who they are to websites, services, and applications across the web. Self-sovereign identities (SSI) are digital identities that are managed in a decentralized manner. This technology allows users to self-manage their digital identities without depending on third-party providers to store and centrally manage the data.

More info:  https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Self-sovereign_identity