Verified Presence Protocol™
Manifesto
This Manifesto articulates the foundational principles that led to the creation of the Verified Presence Protocol™.
It is a statement of institutional intent, not an implementation guide.
Digital systems increasingly mediate actions with real-world consequences.
Yet most systems still lack a fundamental capability:
the ability to establish explicit, accountable human authorization before an action occurs.
Verified Presence is not concerned with who acted.
It is concerned with who explicitly authorized an action — and when — before execution.
The Trust Gap
Modern digital environments verify identity, credentials, and access.
They generate logs, permissions, and audit trails — often after the fact.
But these mechanisms do not reliably establish whether a real human was consciously present and accountable at the moment an action was authorized.
As delegation increases — to software systems, agents, and AI-mediated execution — this gap becomes a systemic institutional risk.
Presence Is Not Identity
Verified Presence does not seek to identify individuals.
It seeks to establish accountable human presence at a specific moment in time, independent of identity systems, platforms, or applications.
Presence is temporal.
Identity is persistent.
Conflating the two weakens accountability and erodes trust.
Authorization Before Execution
Verified Presence is anchored in a simple principle:
No delegated or mediated action should occur without explicit human authorization beforehand.
Such authorization must be:
- intentional
- time-bound
- verifiable
- auditable
- independent of content, outcomes, or execution mechanisms
Accountability cannot be reliably reconstructed from logs or inferred from access rights.
It must be explicitly established before execution.
Institutional Integrity
Verified Presence is designed for environments where trust is non-negotiable.
It prioritizes:
- neutrality over optimization
- governance over convenience
- accountability over automation
Its purpose is not speed or scale — but legitimacy.
The Role of VPP™
The Verified Presence Protocol™ defines institutional semantics and governance expectations, not software, applications, or enforcement mechanisms.
It exists to ensure that digital actions remain anchored to real, accountable human authorization, even as systems become increasingly autonomous.
A Protocol, Not a Product
The Verified Presence Protocol™ (VPP™) is not a platform, application, or service.
It is a protocol-level reference standard that defines:
- institutional semantics
- governance expectations
- accountability boundaries
VPP™ does not prescribe implementations, architectures, or technologies.
It provides a neutral foundation upon which institutions may establish verifiable human authorization across systems, jurisdictions, and execution environments.
AI and Delegated Systems
As AI systems increasingly mediate, recommend, or initiate actions, traditional notions of digital trust become insufficient.
Verified Presence does not seek to control AI systems.
It establishes human accountability before AI-mediated execution, without capturing content, decision logic, or personal data.
Manifesto Statement
This Manifesto expresses the principles underlying the Verified Presence Protocol™.
Normative definitions, governance rules, and conformity processes are defined in the official protocol documentation.
Verified Presence Protocol™
A governed trust protocol for accountable execution.