| Terms | Definitions |
| Active Status | A LEI Entity status in the Global LEI System. |
| Audit Report | An audit report provided to the Qualified vLEI Issuer by its internal or external auditors or comparable function. |
| Continuity Policy | A policy that GLEIF must have for the survival of control authority of all controllers for the GLEIF Root AID and its Delegated AIDs, including Escrow Controllers and that QVIs and Legal Entities should have for survival of control authority of their Controllers. |
| Designated Authorized Representative (DAR) | A representative of a Qualified vLEI Issuer or a Legal Entity that are authorized by the QVI or the Legal Entity to act officially on behalf of the QVI or the Legal Entity. DARs of QVIs can authorize vLEI Issuer Qualification Program Checklists, execute the vLEI Issuer Qualification Agreement and provide designate/replace Qualified vLEI Issuer Authorized Representatives (QARs). DARs of Legal Entities can execute the contract between a Qualified vLEI Issuer and the Legal Entity and provide designate/replace Legal Entity Authorized Representatives (LARs). |
| Engagement Context Role Person (ECR Person) | A person that represents the Legal Entity in a functional or in another context role and is issued an ECR vLEI Credential. |
| GLEIF | Global Legal Entity Identifier Foundation |
| GLEIF Authorized Representative (GAR) | A representative of GLEIF authorized to perform the identity verification requirements needed to issue the QVI vLEI Credential. GLEIF has authorized specific GARs, Internal and External GARs, for the GIDA and GEDA (see definition of Delegated AIDs). |
| GLEIF Website | http://www.gleif.org |
| GLEIS | Global Legal Entity Identifier System |
| Global LEI Repository | A database managed by GLEIF containing all current and historical LEIs and LEI reference data. |
| Identity Assurance | A process that is part of Identity Verification, the steps of which are defined in each of the vLEI Credential Frameworks of the vLEI Ecosystem Governance Framework, which must be conducted before the issuance of vLEI Credentials. |
| Identity Authentication | A process that is part of Identity Verification, the steps of which are defined in each of the vLEI Credential Frameworks of the vLEI Ecosystem Governance Framework, which must be conducted before the issuance of vLEI Credentials. |
| Legal Entity | As defined in ISO 17442:2020, a legal person or structure that is organized under the laws of any jurisdiction; includes, but is not limited to, unique parties that are legally or financially responsible for the performance of financial transactions or have the legal right in their jurisdiction to enter independently into legal contracts, regardless of whether they are incorporated or constituted in some other way (e.g., trust, partnership, contractual). It includes governmental organizations and supranationals and individuals when acting in a business capacity but excludes natural persons. It also includes international branches. |
| Legal Entity Authorized Representative (LAR) | A representative of a Legal Entity that are authorized by a DAR of a Legal Entity to request issuance and revocation of vLEI Legal Entity Credentials, Legal Entity Official Organizational Role vLEI Credentials (OOR vLEI Credentials), and Legal Entity Engagement Context Role vLEI Credentials (ECR vLEI Credentials). |
| LEI Issuer | An organization accredited by GLEIF to validate legal entity information and register new LEIs and reference data which are sent to GLEIF for inclusion in the GLEIS. |
| LEI, LEIs | Legal Entity Identifier(s) |
| Official Organizational Role Person (OOR Person) | A person that represents the Legal Entity in an official organizational role and is issued an OOR vLEI Credential. |
| Qualified vLEI Issuer (QVI) | The contracting party to the vLEI Issuer Qualification Agreement that has been qualified by GLEIF as a Qualified vLEI Issuer. |
| Qualified vLEI Issuer Authorization vLEI Credential | A vLEI credential that enables simple, safe, secure instruction and authorization by a Legal Entity Authorized Representative (LAR) sent to a QVI for the issuance and revocation of vLEI Role Credentials. |
| Qualified vLEI Issuer Authorized Representative (QAR) | A designated representative of a QVI authorized to conduct QVI operations with GLEIF and Legal Entities. QARs perform the Identity Verification requirements needed to issue vLEI Legal Entity Credentials, Legal Entity Official Organizational Role vLEI Credentials (OOR vLEI Credentials), and Legal Entity Engagement Context Role vLEI Credentials (ECR vLEI Credentials) as well as the issuance and revocation of these Credentials. |
| QVI Authorized Representative (QAR) | A designated representative of a QVI authorized to conduct QVI operations with GLEIF and Legal Entities. |
| QVI Authorized Representative (QAR) Person | A person in the role of a QAR. |
| Root of Trust | Strong governance which begins with the issuance and maintenance of the LEI itself, GLEIF will be the anchor of the vLEI ecosystem. |
| TrustMark | A TrustMark for a Qualified vLEI Issuer provided GLEIF by to the Qualified vLEI Issuer (refer to Appendix 6 to the vLEI Issuer Qualification Agreement). |
| verifiable LEI (vLEI) | An Authentic Chained Data Container credential which contains an LEI issued in accordance with the vLEI Ecosystem Governance Framework requirements. |
| vLEI Chain of Trust | The cryptographic chain of trust for organizational identity established for the vLEI which connects the following entities: GLEIF > Qualified vLEI Issuers > Legal Entities > Persons Representing Legal Entities. |
| vLEI Issuance | The process of issuing a vLEI Credential. |
| vLEI Maintenance | All steps taken to ensure that the vLEI continues to be based on the existence of a LEI that maintains the required entity and registration statuses in the GLEIS as well as keeping credential wallets and private keys secure. |
| vLEI Revocation | The process of revoking a vLEI Credential. |
| vLEI User | Any user of vLEI credentials in any applicable use case. |
| Autonomic Identifiers (AIDs) | AIDs are self-certifying identifiers that are imbued with self-management capabilities via the KERI protocol. There are two main classes of AIDs in KERI: 1) transferable AIDS, and 2) non-transferable AIDS. Key management policies are different for the two classes of AIDs. |
| Delegated AIDs | Autonomic Identifiers (AIDs) which have associated Decentralized Identifier (DIDs). These are primary identifiers. Unless otherwise indicated, whenever the term identifier is used with reference to KERI, the references are to primary identifiers. Examples are: GLEIF Internal Delegated AID (GIDA) and GLEIF External Delegated AID (GEDA). |
| Distributed Hash Table (DHT) | In computing, a data structure that implements an associative array abstract data type, a structure that can map keys to values. Within the vLEI Ecosystem, these tables are used for the discovery of AIDs. |
| GLEIF Root of Trust AID | The GLEIF Root Aid provides the Root of Trust for the ecosystem tree of trust. Each branch in that tree is a Chain of Trust. The Delegated Aid Chain of Trust branch provides trust for delegated GLEIF AIDS and Qualified vLEI Issuer Delegated AIDs. The vLEI Chain of Trust branch, that attaches to the Delegated AID Chain of Trust branch, provides trust for all vLEIs within the vLEI ecosystem. |
| Key Event Receipt Infrastructure (KERI) | Provides the identifier and key management architecture for the vLEI Ecosystem Technical Architecture (KERI white paper: Smith, S. M., “Key Event Receipt Infrastructure (KERI) Design”, Revised 2020/09/06, 2019/07/03) |
| Watcher | An entity or component that keeps a copy of a Key Event Receipt Log (KERL) for an identifier but is not designated by the Controller thereof as one of its Witnesses. |
| Witness | An entity or component designated (trusted) by the Controller of an identifier. The primary role of a Witness is to verify, sign, and keep events associated with an identifier. A Witness is the Controller of its own self-referential identifier which may or may not be the same as the identifier to which it is a Witness. As a special case a Controller may serve as its own Witness. Witness designations are included in key (establishment) events. As a result, the role of a Witness may be verified using the identifier’s rotation history. When designated, a Witness becomes part of the supporting infrastructure establishing and maintaining control authority over an identifier. An identifier Witness therefore is part of its trust basis and may be controlled (but not necessarily so) by its Controller. |