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Access consent and Trust Check

Informative guide for Portable Trust Infrastructure (PTI) consumers and subjects. Normative lookup rules live in RFC-004 and Reference Error Codes.

Overview

PTI separates trust production from trust consumption. A Trust Check at decision time must be purpose-bound. Who may run one depends on who is checking and the member's Trust Check policy.

Who is checkingDefault behaviour
Person (no institution seat)Peer Trust Check — not blocked by institution access grants
InstitutionHonours the member's Trust Check consent mode (below)

Sane defaults (member policy)

Every member has trust_check_consent_mode:

ModeMeaning
open (platform default)Institutions may Trust Check without a prior grant. The platform auto-creates a revocable grant, pushes the member, and logs activity
askFail-closed — institution must wait for an explicit access grant (consent_required / PTI-4033)
closedDeny all institution Trust Checks until the member opens access or grants a specific organisation

Why not “open to everyone forever”? Members stay in control: open is convenient for networks and demos, but every auto-grant is visible, notifiable, and revocable. Switch to Ask or Closed anytime in Privacy / Access consent.

Explicit grants remain the right tool when you want a clear purpose, expiry, and consent reference for a named institution.

Member agency

Members manage grants on the TumiTrust mobile Access grants desk (not privacy visibility toggles). Each active grant carries:

  • Partner institution identity
  • Scopes (score, network, behavior, history)
  • Expiry
  • Stable consent_ref (UUID string)

Grant and revoke (and open-mode auto-grants / Trust Check use) send push + in-app notifications and write activity log rows for the member.

Institution Trust Check

Recommended path for institution seats:

POST /api/v1/trust-reports/reports/generate/

On success, responses include consent_ref. On miss (member in ask / closed, or no valid grant):

{
"success": false,
"code": "consent_required",
"error": "Active access consent from the member is required before this Trust Check."
}

Do not assume consent when the member uses ask. If access consent is missing or invalid, return consent_required, ask the member to grant access, then retry.

Lexicon

Use institution, member, access consent, Trust Check, portable trust. Avoid lender/borrower in partner-facing copy.

Further reading