Attestation Rulebook for attestations of type Contact Person

Category: non-qualified EAA

• Author(s):

  • [Florin Coptil, Robert Bosch GmbH]
  • [Dominic Hurni, SBB]

• Previous Authors *

• Reviewer(s):

  • [Werner Folkendt, Robert Bosch GmbH]
  • [Stephan-A Fuchs, Deutsche Bank]

• Contact:

  • Florin Coptil
  • Dominic Hurni

• Feedback:

Written against: ARF version 3.0.0, WE BUILD template version 1.0 (generic)

Feedback: GitHub issues

Table of contents

• 1 Introduction
  • 1.1 Document scope and purpose
  • 1.2 Document structure
  • 1.3 Key words
  • 1.4 Terminology
• 2 Compliance
  • 2.1 Compliance statement
  • 2.2 Regulatory basis
  • 2.3 Traceability
• 3 Attestation attributes
  • 3.1 Introduction
  • 3.2 Mandatory attributes
  • 3.3 Optional attributes
  • 3.4 Conditional attributes
• 4 Metadata
  • 4.1 Mandatory metadata
  • 4.2 Optional metadata
  • 4.3 Conditional metadata
  • 4.4 Code lists
  • 4.5 Integrity rules
• 5 Formats
  • 5.1 SD-JWT VC-based encoding
  • 5.2 ISO/IEC 18013-5-compliant encoding
  • 5.3 W3C Verifiable Credentials Data Model-based encoding
• 6 Protocols
• 7 Issuance
  • 7.1 Binding
  • 7.2 Issuance Policy
  • 7.3 Lifecycle management
  • 7.4 Embedded disclosure policy
• 8 Revocation
• 9 Presentation
  • 9.1 Presentation Policy
  • 9.2 Presentation modes
  • 9.3 Transactional data
• 10 Trust Framework
• 11 References

1 Introduction

This attestation addresses the following question:

Who are the designated contact persons within a legal entity and what are their roles and contact details?

The Contact Person Attestation identifies and verifies natural persons acting as designated contacts of a economic operator, enabling automated and secure exchange of trustworthy contact person data between economic operators in supply chain, procurement, and onboarding processes.

1.1 Document scope and purpose

Cross-company communication and data exchange is daily business in supply management. Knowing the correct and valid contact persons for different issues (e.g., finance, product, quality, logistics) saves time and money and therefore crucial to conduct efficient business in the supplier onboarding, pre-contracting, or contracting phase. Minimum one contact person is required for the onboarding process. The Contact Person Attestation identifies and verifies natural persons acting as designated contacts of the corresponding economic operator, enabling automated and secure exchange of contact person data between economic operators within supply chain and procurement processes.

Use Cases:

Relying Party:

• Logistics employees have instant access to valid logistics contact person data. For example, in the event of a wrongly delivered battery cell, an employee contacts the responsible sales representative by email or phone.
• The Relying Party Wallet validates the revocation status of contact person data. Administrative employee receives a notification and takes contact with HR responsible contact person of supplier.

Holder:

• An administrative employee receives a request from a procurer to provide contact persons for sales, production, finance, and quality for a specific product (e.g., battery cell). The holder company has issued Contact Person attestations for all its employees into its Company Wallet. The system selects the fitting employee to answer the request (e.g., a Key Account Manager as the battery cell sales contact person).
• The Holder is responsible for the lifecycle of the attestation content, including revocation and role changes. Holder is not responsible for the attestation schema.

The added value of the Contact Person attestation for organizations is to automate the onboarding and maintenance process of contact person data, increasing data accuracy and enabling fast and secure business interactions. Self issued attestation can be n times reused.

This attestation flows only between organizations where a business relationship exists. After mutual identification and authentication.

Design Decisions

This Contact Person Attestation Rulebook is based on:

• EU Company Certificate (EUCC) / European Business Wallet (EBW) framework as the foundational legal identity layer for the employing organization, including identifier.
• Schema.org vocabulary for personal name attributes
• Core Public Organisation Vocabulary (CPOV) for contact point attributes
• European Business Wallet Vocabulary (https://webuild-consortium.github.io/wp4-semantics-group/ebwv//vocabulary.html)
• The Organization Ontology for role classification
• RFC 4021 for email address formatting
• ITU-T E.164 for telephone number formatting
• EAA as proof for employeeship for each employee issued by the economic operator.

1.2 Document structure

This Rulebook follows the generic WE BUILD attestation rulebook template. Chapter 2 states how it complies with the ARF and the applicable Regulations. Chapters 3 and 4 define the attributes and metadata in an encoding-independent manner. Chapter 5 states the formats in which this attestation is issued. Chapters 6 to 9 cover protocols, issuance, revocation and presentation. Chapter 10 sets out the trust framework, and chapter 11 lists references.

1.3 Key words

This document uses the capitalised key words 'SHALL', 'SHOULD' and 'MAY' as specified in [RFC 2119], to indicate requirements, recommendations and options.

In addition, 'must' (non-capitalised) indicates an external constraint, a requirement not mandated by this document but by an external document. The word 'can' indicates a capability. Other words such as 'will', 'is' and 'are' are statements of fact.

1.4 Terminology

Additional terminology specific to this attestation:

2 Compliance

2.1 Compliance statement

This Rulebook complies with the applicable requirements of Topic 12, Attestation Rulebooks, in Annex 2 of the Architecture and Reference Framework, version 3.0.0. It uses the terminology of Annex 1 of the ARF.

2.2 Regulatory basis

This attestation is not a qualified electronic attestation of attributes. The data described in Annex V points b, c and e of Regulation (EU) 2024/1183 is addressed as required by EW-DM-12-018 and as recommended by EW-DM-12-020 and EW-DM-12-022. Where a recommendation is not followed, the reason is stated below.

2.3 Traceability

Every applicable requirement mapped to the section that satisfies it. Requirements marked not applicable carry a stated reason.

3 Attestation attributes

Attributes are defined here in an encoding-independent manner (EW-DM-12-007). The encoding of each attribute is given in chapter 5.

3.1 Introduction

The Contact Person Attestation is designed to provide a standardized, verifiable representation of a natural person designated as a contact of an economic operator. This attestation enables trusted and automated exchange of contact person data between economic operators in supply chain, procurement, and onboarding processes.

The data model for the Contact Person Attestation is structured as follows:

Data Model:*

ContactPerson Attestation
├─ legal_entity (M)
│   ├─ legal_person  (M)
│   │   ├─ legal_person_name (tstr) (M)
│   │   ├─ legal_form_type (tstr) (M)
│   ├─ identifier  (M)                          // At least one identifier required
│   │   ├─ euid (str) (O)                       // European Unique Identifier
│   │   ├─ lei (str) (O)                        // Legal Entity Identifier per ISO 17442
│   │   ├─ tax (str) (O)                        // National tax or registration number    
│   │   ├─ gln (str) (O)                        // Global Location Number for legal entities, GS1 identifier
│   │   ├─ duns (str) (O)                       // Data Universal Numbering System, Dun & Bradstreet identifier
│   │   ├─ eori (str) (O)                       // Economic Operators Registration and Identification number, EU customs identifier
│   │   ├─ bpnl (str) (O)                       // Business Partner Number Legal entity, Catena-X identifier per ICD 0243
│   │   ├─ siren (str) (O)                      // Système d'Identification du Répertoire des ENtreprises, French company identifier
└── contact_persons [1..n]                      // Array of ContactPerson 
│   ├─  given_name (M)
│   ├─  family_name (M)
│   ├─  role (M)
│   ├─  email (M)
│   ├─  telephone (O)

Note: M - mandatory / O - optional.

Explanation:

• The legal_entity object SHALL appear exactly once and contains an identifier object with at least one official identifier of the company.
• The Contact_Person object SHALL appear at least once and MAY be repeated for each designated contact. Each instance contains the person's name, role, and contact details.

Attestation Classification:

This attestation type is classified as:

• "EAA" Self-issued by the legal entity as part of its disclosures.

3.2 Mandatory attributes

LegalPerson Attributes

LegalEntity Attributes This object is defined once per attestation.

ContactPerson Attributes This object is defined for each person represented in the Contact Person Attestation.

3.3 Optional attributes

3.4 Conditional attributes

No conditional attributes are defined for this attestation type.

4 Metadata

Metadata describes the attestation rather than its subject.

4.1 Mandatory metadata

Note: Standard JWT claims (iss, iat, exp) are also mandatory.

Legal category. This Rulebook retains the attestation_legal_category attribute. Section 4.1 of the generic template replaces it with the category attribute of [ETSI TS 119 472-1], whose value for this category is eaa:eu:non-qualified. EW-DM-12-029, legacy ARB_25, of ARF version 3.0.0 is a SHALL that still requires attestation_legal_category, so the template and the ARF disagree. The attribute is left as written and the deviation is recorded for the rulebook quality assurance group.

4.2 Optional metadata

4.3 Conditional metadata

No conditional metadata elements are defined for this attestation type.

4.4 Code lists

4.4.1 Role Values

The role attribute SHOULD use descriptive role labels aligned with organizational functions. The following non-exhaustive list is provided for guidance:

4.5 Integrity rules

The following integrity rules SHALL be enforced:

• Legal_Entity SHALL appear exactly once and SHALL contain legal_person_name, legal_form_type, and at least one identifiers.
• The contact_persons array SHALL contain at least one entry.
• Each contact_person entry SHALL contain a non-empty given_name, family_name, role, and email.
• email SHALL be a valid email address conforming to RFC 4021.
• telephone, if provided, SHALL conform to ITU-T E.164.

5 Formats

5.1 SD-JWT VC-based encoding

The Contact Person Attestation uses the SD-JWT VC format to allow for selective disclosure of contact attributes.

Verifiable Credential Type (vct): eu.we-build:contactperson:1

5.1.1 Attribute Encoding Table

5.1.2 Status Claim

For SD-JWT VC-compliant Attestations, the attestation MUST include a status claim if the technical validity period is greater than 24 hours.

The status claim SHALL be a JSON object with the following members:

Example:

{
  "status": {
    "type": "status-list",
    "status_list_credential": "https://issuer.example.com/status/contactperson/2026",
    "status_list_index": 321,
    "status_purpose": "revocation"
  }
}

5.1.3 Example Payload

Here is a non-normative example payload reflecting the new model:

{
  "vct":"eu.we-build:contactperson:1",
  "iss":"did:example:webuild-company-456",
  "iat":1736935200,
  "exp":1768471200,
  "attestation_legal_category":"EAA",
  "schema_version":"1.0",
  "trust_anchor_url":"https://trust.webuildconsortium.eu/anchors/eidas-tl",

  "legal_entity": {
    "legal_person": {
      "legal_person_name": "Example GmbH",
      "legal_form_type": "GmbH"
    },
    "identifier": {
      "euid": "DE-HRB-123456",
      "lei": "5493001KJTIIGC8Y1R12",
      "tax": "DE123456789"
    }
  },

  "contact_persons":[
    {
      "given_name":"Anna",
      "family_name":"Schmidt",
      "role":"logistics",
      "email":"anna.schmidt@example.com",
      "telephone":"+4915123456789"
    },
    {
      "given_name":"Max",
      "family_name":"Mustermann",
      "role":"finance",
      "email":"max.mustermann@example.com"
    }
  ],
  
  "status":{
    "type":"status-list",
    "status_list_credential":"https://issuer.example.com/status/contactperson/2026",
    "status_list_index":321,
    "status_purpose":"revocation"
  },
  "cnf":{
    "jwk":{
      "kty":"EC",
      "crv":"P-256",
      "x":"TCAER19Zvu3OHF4j4W4vfSVoHIP1ILilDls7vCeGemc",
      "y":"ZxjiWWbZMQGHVWKVQ4hbSIirsVfuecCE6t4jT9F2HZQ"
    }
  }
}

Sample payloads are provided under ../data-schemas/sd-jwt/sample-data/contact-person-sd-jwt-sample.json

5.2 ISO/IEC 18013-5-compliant encoding

ISO/IEC 18013-5 is out of scope for this Rulebook.

5.3 W3C Verifiable Credentials Data Model-based encoding

This Rulebook does not define a W3C Verifiable Credentials Data Model encoding for this attestation type.

6 Protocols

This attestation is issued using OpenID for Verifiable Credential Issuance [OpenID4VCI] and presented using OpenID for Verifiable Presentations [OpenID4VP], both as profiled by [HAIP].

7 Issuance

7.1 Binding

7.2 Issuance Policy

For EAA (Self-Issued / Standard Issuance):

• The issuer (i.e., the legal entity itself) issues the attestation based on the information and supporting documentation available at the time of issuance.
• The issuer is responsible for ensuring that the attested information remains accurate and must immediately revoke the attestation if any change occurs that affects the validity or accuracy of the underlying data.

The Issuer SHALL implement the base issuer obligation as defined in the Issuer Obligation specification: https://github.com/webuild-consortium/webuild-attestation-rulebooks-catalog/blob/main/rulebooks/rb-base/verifier-base-verification.md#41-issuer-obligations

7.3 Lifecycle management

The issuer sets the validity period of the attestation and reissues it when the underlying facts change, revoking the superseded attestation as described in chapter 8.

7.4 Embedded disclosure policy

This attestation defines no embedded disclosure policy.

8 Revocation

An attestation SHALL remain valid only while its underlying information is accurate, complete, and legally effective.

8.1 Revocation Mechanism

• Token Status List: The issuer must maintain an active IETF Token Status List (aligned with the Attestation Status List mechanism specified by the EU Commission).
• Credential Metadata: The metadata status_list must be populated in every issued CompanyInfo attestation, referencing the status list URI and the credential's specific index.

Authorized Authority: Only the authorized issuer (the self-issuing legal entity for EAA) may modify the status list entry.

8.2 Revocation Triggers & Business Rules

• EAA Trigger (Manual Obligation): The self-issuing legal entity is under strict obligation to immediately update or revoke its EAA if its available documents, financial thresholds, or ownership structures change.

Relying Party Action: A revoked or suspended attestation must be treated as invalid for credential-validity purposes by all RPs. The business interpretation is determined by the Relying Party's internal compliance policies.

9 Presentation

Base Verification Process

The Relying Party SHALL perform the base attestation verification process as defined in the Base Verification specification: https://github.com/webuild-consortium/webuild-attestation-rulebooks-catalog/blob/main/rulebooks/rb-base/verifier-base-verification.md

9.1 Presentation Policy

To verify and validate a received presentation of an attestation of this type, the following steps SHALL be performed:

1. verify the signature over the attestation using a trust anchor obtained as described in chapter 10;
2. verify that the attestation is within its validity period;
3. check revocation status as described in chapter 8, unless the attestation is short-lived, or its remaining lifetime is below the revocation time threshold;
4. verify device binding where section 7.1 records the attestation as device-bound;
5. request only those attributes that are necessary for the stated purpose of the transaction, and, where the trust model for this attestation requires Relying Party registration, only those attributes it is registered and authorised to request.

Obligations specific to this attestation type, carried over from the previous version of this Rulebook:

When receiving and processing an attestation, the Relying Party SHALL perform the following verification obligations.

9.2 Presentation modes

Remote presentation is in scope. Proximity presentation is in scope only where chapter 5 records an mdoc encoding.

9.3 Transactional data

This Rulebook defines no transactional data.

10 Trust Framework

This chapter specifies the trust anchor mechanisms used by Relying Parties to establish trust in the issuer of an Electronic Attestation of Attributes (EAA) or a Qualified Electronic Attestation of Attributes (QEAA). The corresponding verification procedures are defined in Sections 4.2.2–4.2.4.

10.1 Electronic Attestations of Attributes (EAAs)

For EAAs, trust is established through a cryptographic chain anchored in the Electronic Business Wallet Owner Identity Document (EBWOID). The EBWOID SHALL be included in the header of every EAA. During EBWOID issuance, the EBWOID provider verifies that the public key contained in the EBWOID is owned by the Electronic Business Wallet (EBW) owner.

The Relying Party SHALL verify the EBWOID in accordance with the verification procedure defined in this Rulebook. Upon successful verification, the Relying Party obtains:

• assurance that the EBWOID was issued by an authorized provider and is not self-issued;
• the verified identity of the issuer, including its name and EUID (or another globally unique EBW owner identifier); and
• the public key authorized to verify the EAA signature.

Authorization of the issuer is subsequently determined in accordance with the Relying Party's internal policies. Such authorization MAY be based on locally maintained wallet configuration or on trusted jurisdiction- or domain-specific trust list services that identify issuers authorized for a particular type of EAA

Trust anchor location

The attribute or metadata carrying the trust anchor location contains at least the URL at which a machine-readable version can be found or looked up.

11 References