Words used in certification

A working vocabulary.

Start with the difference between a robot’s identity, its certificate and the result of checking that certificate.

These definitions are guidance. The documents of record define the claim and governing terms.

GRRC: The certification body for the bounded claim. Its separate role is to evaluate and certify, rather than build, operate or remotely control the robot. See the Charter and the current single-operator disclosure.
Owner: The human or legal organization acting through the applicable authenticated authority. The role label is not, by itself, a determination of legal title.
Robot UUID: GRRC’s logical robot identifier, used to bind the admitted subject and locate its public verification material. It is different from an internal database ID and does not alone prove physical hardware identity.
Registration: Establishing the robot’s identity and authorized relationship in the relevant records. Registration does not issue a certificate.
Pairing: The admitted association between corresponding records in separate systems. Pairing does not merge their accounts, databases or signing authority.
Certification Profile: The description of the subject, evidence and controls used for a bounded evaluation. A Profile does not turn the certificate into a general safety or product-quality claim.
Evidence package: The admitted evidence for a particular request, subject and Profile. An immutable revision preserves the original admitted bytes and bindings.
Challenge: Request-bound information the robot responds to with the required proof. It helps tie evidence to the intended request and admitted keys.
Evaluation: Applying the bound controls to admitted evidence. A passing evaluation prepares a result for the separate signing path; it is not a certificate.
Evaluation proof: Integrity material binding an evaluation result to its candidate, Profile and evidence. Its signature has a different purpose from the certifier’s certificate signature.
Certificate: A certifier-signed artifact for the admitted robot identity and bounded result, with its own identifier and signed lifetime. Read The Claim for what verification asserts.
Clearance: The term used in the earlier trust and recovery documents for a certifier-signed clearance bound to the specific self-decertification event it supersedes. Initial certification is a distinct path.
Signing ceremony: The separate supported process that checks the admitted candidate and uses certifier custody to produce a signed artifact. It is not an ordinary administration role or an online signing endpoint.
Acceptance receipt: The durable record that signed material was accepted and deposited through the robot’s supported path. A receipt alone is not a verdict on current validity or public publication.
Verification: Checking signed material against admitted trust and the applicable validity conditions. Public verification is anonymous and does not grant access to the private record.
Trust anchor: Admitted public key material used to check the certifier’s signatures. A public anchor is not the private signing key.
Checkpoint: A signed statement used by the established public format to confirm the bounded chain-integrity and certification claim at a stated point. It is not publication of the full private Audit record.
Verification bundle: Saved signed inputs for independent checking. The existing public API supplies a bundle, trust-anchor set and revocation statement for the provisioned record.
Registry: The signed public membership record. Membership is different from current certificate validity; follow the verification result for the latter.
Renewal: Fresh certifier-signed issuance through the applicable process, preserving the old certificate and history. It is separate from paying for or renewing a service.
Expiry: The result of checking a certificate’s signed lifetime against the relevant verification time. Expiry is different from an authorized withdrawal.
Supersession: An applicable signed successor replaces reliance on the earlier certificate while preserving the recorded history. It does not edit the old certificate back into an active state.
Withdrawal and revocation: The applicable authorized lifecycle change to reliance on a certificate or signer. An Owner’s request, a local state change and completed public observation are separate facts. Account suspension or payment failure is not revocation.
Self-decertification: The robot’s own integrity-fault event. Reinstatement requires the applicable fault-bound certifier authority; a clean later decision or Owner action cannot self-clear it.
Recovery: A context-dependent operation: restoring account access, resolving robot key authority, reconciling interrupted work or reinstating after an integrity fault. These are different processes, not one universal reset.
As of: The time or evidence horizon to which a statement applies. The time a verifier runs is different from the dates of the signed evidence and trust statements it checks.

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