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Portable Trust Infrastructure Whitepaper

Reference paper

The canonical long-form reference for academics, regulators, and enterprise strategy teams.

Published overview: tumitrust.com/docs/pti · discuss on GitHub

Abstract​

Portable Trust Infrastructure (PTI) addresses trust fragmentation in emerging markets by separating trust generation (partner-ingested signals) from trust consumption (institutional lookups). TumiTrust implements PTI as a trust platform — not a credit bureau — with 20+ documented trust contexts (10 primaries + 10 lenses).

1. Introduction​

Formal credit files capture a narrow slice of economic life. Community trade, digital lending, rental reliability, and mobile-money behavior produce credible signals that rarely travel across institutions. PTI makes those signals portable, context-scoped, and explainable.

2. Problem: trust fragmentation​

  • Signals locked in silos (one lender, one landlord, one wallet)
  • Under-documented ≠ untrustworthy
  • Institutions lack programmable infrastructure for multi-context decisions

3. PTI philosophy​

Ubuntu applied to infrastructure: "I am because we are" — community validation complements verified activity.

PTI is:

  • Portable — Trust profile travels with the subject
  • Programmable — APIs and webhooks for institutions
  • Context-scoped — 10 primary + 10 lens contexts
  • Explainable — drivers and provenance, not black boxes

4. Portable identities​

  • PTI-ID for partner-provisioned entities
  • Directory resolution for native members
  • Claim flows for screened external subjects who later enroll in a PTI registry

5. Trust signals​

Signal types: partner events, endorsements, badges, verification documents.

6. Trust intelligence​

Lookup tiers: Basic · Detailed · Predictive · Screening dossier — all trust intelligence exports with explainability contracts per the specification.

Implementations MAY expose operator consoles for search, screening review, and verifiable report export; product naming is deployment-specific.

7. Metering (informative)​

Implementations that bill producers MAY meter processing as Trust Compute Units (TCU) per context per billing period (RFC-001). TCU is not normative for conformance.

Reference implementation: TumiTrust partner billing.

8. Partner ecosystem​

Producers enable contexts, configure connectors (webhook, API, CSV), and emit catalogued events. Consumers request contexts[] on reports.

9. Context tiers & expansion​

Primaries: life-area contexts such as lending, rental, and employment.

Lenses: cross-cutting views such as risk_compliance, digital_platform, and civic — enabled per contract on the same map.

10. Governance & future​

Citation​

TumiTrust Ltd. Portable Trust Infrastructure Whitepaper. Available at https://tumitrust.com/docs/pti/bibliography/whitepaper