| --- |
| license: cc-by-4.0 |
| language: |
| - en |
| tags: |
| - content-provenance |
| - identity-verification |
| - post-quantum-cryptography |
| - federated |
| - open-standard |
| - eu-ai-act |
| - tip-protocol |
| - trust-identity-protocol |
| pretty_name: Trust Identity Protocol (TIP) Whitepaper v5.0 |
| size_categories: |
| - n<1K |
| --- |
| |
| # Trust Identity Protocol (TIP) Whitepaper v5.0 |
|
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| The canonical 140-page specification for the Trust Identity Protocol, the open, post-quantum, federated standard for verified human identity and content provenance on the internet. |
|
|
| ## Citation |
|
|
| > Mendhe, Dinesh. *Trust Identity Protocol (TIP) v5.0: An Open Standard for Verified Human Identity and AI Content Provenance.* The AI Lab Intelligence Unobscured, Inc., 2026. Zenodo. DOI: 10.5281/zenodo.20722378 |
|
|
| ## Canonical archive |
|
|
| The authoritative DOI-bearing copy is on Zenodo at CERN: [https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.20722378](https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.20722378) |
|
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| This Hugging Face mirror is provided so the ML and AI research community can discover, download, and discuss the specification alongside other open AI infrastructure. |
|
|
| ## What is TIP? |
|
|
| TIP is a three-layer protocol: TIP-ID (identity), TIP-CONTENT (provenance), and TIP-TRUST (reputation). The cryptography is built on NIST post-quantum standards (FIPS 203 ML-KEM-768, FIPS 204 ML-DSA-65, FIPS 205 SLH-DSA). The network is a federated DAG of cryptographically signed records operated by accredited Node Operators. The governance is an independent multi-stakeholder council. |
|
|
| ## What is it not? |
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| TIP is not a watermarking scheme, a content classifier, or a learned detection model. It is a cryptographic protocol that binds verified human identity to signed content and to a public registry record. The complementary technologies (C2PA for device-side capture, classifiers for AI-generated content detection) compose with TIP; they do not replace it. |
|
|
| ## Implementer paths |
|
|
| - Whitepaper: this PDF, or the canonical [Zenodo DOI](https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.20722378) |
| - Protocol overview and architecture: [theailab.org/trust-identity-protocol](https://theailab.org/trust-identity-protocol) |
| - Browser plugin reference implementation: [github.com/theailaborg/tip-browser-extension](https://github.com/theailaborg/tip-browser-extension) |
| - Verification portal source: [github.com/theailaborg/tip-vp-with-mobile-web-app](https://github.com/theailaborg/tip-vp-with-mobile-web-app) |
| - Verification flow and TIP-ID issuance: [vp.theailab.org](https://vp.theailab.org) |
|
|
| ## Compliance |
|
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| Designed to satisfy: |
| - EU AI Act Article 50 (AI content disclosure obligations) |
| - EU Digital Services Act (creator authentication and content moderation) |
| - GDPR (data minimisation and biometric data handling, Article 9) |
| - US state-level deepfake disclosure regimes |
|
|
| ## Authorship |
|
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| Invented and authored by Dinesh Mendhe, Founder and Chairman, The AI Lab Intelligence Unobscured, Inc. ORCID: [0000-0003-1158-3259](https://orcid.org/0000-0003-1158-3259). |
|
|
| ## Licence |
|
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| Whitepaper released under CC BY 4.0. The protocol licence (TIPCL-1.0) and the source-code repositories are licensed separately; see each repository for its specific terms. |
