The solution: become verifiable
Five needs, the infrastructure they run on, and the ecosystems BHI joins or builds. Two layers that must never be conflated: the UK DVS trust framework sets the rules; Verana is the infrastructure that makes them checkable at transaction time.
“The technology to make hiring safer and more efficient exists today. We need initiatives like the Better Hiring Institute to define and agree open standards so that RecTech Providers can test and implement new hiring solutions.”
What BHI needs
Where this runs
Two layers, and they should never be conflated. The first is statutory; the second is infrastructure.
The rules: the UK DVS trust framework
Published by OfDIA under the Data (Use and Access) Act 2025. It defines the roles a digital verification service can be certified against, and the DVS register records who holds that certification. It is the eligibility criterion for participating in this network as an issuer or verifier of identity-derived credentials. BHI does not grant it and cannot.
The infrastructure: Verana
Public, permissionless trust infrastructure on which ecosystems publish their governance frameworks, credential schemas and participant registries, so that a claim like “this organisation is certified” becomes something a wallet can resolve in the moment, rather than something a human looks up afterwards. Anyone may create an ecosystem or join one.
Sovereign ecosystems: Trust Ecosystems
Build an ecosystem with your own schemas, governance framework, participants and business model, or join an existing one.
Verifiable identity: Verifiable Trust
Identify any service and the organisation controlling it, and verify it before you connect. Verify first. Then connect.
Discovery: the Trust Graph
Find services and ecosystems by the credentials they hold, ranked by trust, for people, search engines and AI agents.
Who decides what
- OfDIA sets and administers DVS certification.
- BHI governs the Recruitment Trust Network and decides what a Verified Employer is.
- Orchestrating Identity, as a certified Orchestration Service Provider, onboards organisations, confirms DVS register status, and is accredited by the Verana Council as a qualified issuer of ECS-Organization credentials.
- Verana is public infrastructure with no gatekeeper: any organisation can join an ecosystem, and any group can create one.
Four parties. No single one both writes the rules and controls the door.
The ecosystems BHI joins
Verana ECS Ecosystem
The identity card: the ecosystem that governs the essential credential schemas. An accredited issuer runs Know-Your-Business once, then issues an ECS-Organization credential; services carry ECS-Service credentials describing what they are and who operates them. One KYB, and an organisation's identity is provable everywhere. This is what turns the check green, and the foundation everything else builds on.
DVS-Aligned Provider Ecosystem (demo)
Today, DVS certification is an entry on a register that a machine cannot check mid-transaction. Carried as a credential on an organisation's verified identity, it becomes something a candidate's wallet evaluates at the moment a request arrives. Eligibility is DVS register status and nothing else: this ecosystem mirrors OfDIA's register, does not constitute it, and is neither operated by nor endorsed by OfDIA. If a provider leaves the register, its Participant entry is revoked. Its governance framework provides for other certified OSPs to be admitted as grantors.
The ecosystem BHI builds
One need remains. No existing ecosystem can answer “is this a legitimate employer, and is this a recognised provider in UK hiring?” Only the sector can. So BHI builds its own, and builds it narrowly, on purpose.
The Recruitment Trust Network
BHI operates as ECOSYSTEM| Credential schema | Issuance | Verification | Held by |
|---|---|---|---|
| Recognised RecTech Provider | ECOSYSTEM (BHI) | OPEN | Member providers |
| Verified Employer | GRANTOR (certified DVS providers) | OPEN | Employers |
That is the whole registry. Two schemas, both about organisations. BHI governs who may participate in hiring: not what a degree is, not who is entitled to work. Those credentials belong to the ecosystems that already own them. The Recruitment Trust Network consumes them and sets the terms on which its own participants may ask for them.
Who may ask, and who may hold
Two rules follow, and they run in opposite directions on purpose.
Asking is restricted
A candidate's right-to-work status is not something any passing website may request. Within the Recruitment Trust Network, only participants holding a Recognised RecTech Provider or Verified Employer credential may request identity-derived credentials, and the wallet enforces this before anything is presented. This is a data-protection decision recorded in the governance framework.
Holding is not
Any individual may hold a wallet and receive credentials under the rules of whichever scheme issues them. Candidates get no entry in any public registry: the registry records organisations and their Participant entries, not people and their attributes. Nothing about an individual is written to a public ledger.
Why BHI builds it: sector integrity as a structural property. Real employers and recognised providers turn green, fake job ads and unrecognised providers turn red, and a member that goes rogue can be revoked. What the sector consumed, the sector now provides.