What is a Tru ID

The “Tru ID” is a globally unique dynamic-length identifier containing a mix of alphanumeric characters that is associated with an entity in the supply chain. Anyone, anywhere can get a Tru ID for free.

Why do I need it?

Navigating the world of global trade is like maneuvering a complex maze. It's all about making sure things move smoothly from one point to another. Yet, the tools we have aren't always cutting it. They're like old maps with missing roads and dead ends, making it tough to keep track of everything.

More importantly, mistakes in your filings or a lack of preparedness with your vendor compliance, accuracy on your filings, and correct payment of any tariffs or taxes, can cost your business millions of dollars.

The Tru ID can be compared to the D-U-N-S Number® LEI, or the GLN/GTIN identifiers, as some key features are quite similar:

Entities are validated against public records
Identifiers are globally unique
Governance and Oversight is done by the provider
Has a number of interoperability features

However, there are a number of areas where the Tru Identifier meets or exceeds the functionality of our industry comparables.

Properties of the ID	TRU ID	DUNS	LEI	GLN
Globally unique
Location and function specific
Managed for accuracy
Tracks supply chain roles
Platform functionality
Keeps legal entities in the supply chain separate
Allows for easy oversight and governance
Enables data sharing
Allows for fast mapping of upstream vendors
Relies on a plurality of data sources for accuracy
Can be used for
Compliance
Supply Chain Optimization
Due Diligence / Underwriting
Governance

The unique features of the Tru ID give it traits of a truly resilient, highly-compliant, and globally relevant identifier and program that can be used to prevent misuse of your brand, discourage vendors from ripping you off (black market) or selling your authentic goods without authorization (grey market). The Tru ID seamlessly enables best-in-class MAP Enforcement, with an AI-powered mapping and monitoring system.

Tru ID Issuance

The process of getting a Tru ID requires just 2 key pieces of information. At a minimum, you must always provide your entity provenance:

The entity's name
The entity's jurisdiction, and
The entity's type (e.g. C-Corp, Trust, Sole-trader, etc)

as well as at least one (1) of the following ‘complex elements’:

Geographic location (including evidence)
Product or service catalog, or HTS/NAICS categories of the product or service supply chains that you participate in
Upstream supply chain vendors

These complex elements are the foundation for Tru’s “Validated ID”, and come with stringent evidentiary and due diligence processes.

Once validated, you are able to benefit from a range of Tru products and benefits, or you can choose to participate in the Verified ID program, which can bring you more customers and help close more business through your trust page. Learn more about Verified ID here →

Maintenance

Maintaining your Tru ID means updating the records that provide context to your entity's status in the Tru system. Tru is constantly monitoring for risks and changes in your compliance from public sources as well as our proprietary private data sources. We monitor for things like:

Updates to your beneficial owners
Sanctioned, Restricted or Denied Parties
Adverse Media relating to your entity or related persons
Changes to your shareholder information
Known address changes
Updates to your product catalogs

Ensuring that Tru is up-to-date with the legitimate changes in your entity data is critical to maintaining an active Tru ID. If you want to ensure you stay compliant, and maintain a 'good standing' status in Tru's global system, you should learn more about how Tru enforces its requirements through our Tru statuses.

Tru runs an assessment of an entity's validity and our ability to verify its information against credible 3rd-party sources on an ongoing basis. Typically, updating the information about your entity will trigger Tru to re-verify the entity information, but this is not always the case.

Some information specifically requires evidence to be provided to satisfy our requirements.

Governance

To protect the integrity of our data, as well as our users’ security and privacy, we don’t reveal every monitoring action, remedial actions, research, or other enforcement actions in this article.

Verification, validation, and even updates to your validated ID record are considered “point in time” markers — they indicate the successful validation of your information against trusted sources at a specific date and time, but are not a good indicator for a health check of an entity.

To ensure the integrity of our data, we conduct spot-checks of entities that are registered on the platform, ensuring that each record is re-validated at least once per calendar year. For companies in our Verified ID program, we re-validate your information once per 28 days to ensure high quality results and that strict compliance SLAs are met, helping to build trust with your customers and potential vendors.

The Trust Score is an essential element of the global Tru Register. It is very similar in essence to a FICO Score, which is used as a ranking and scoring system for consumer credit underwriting.

Data Provenance of the Tru ID and Tru Quality Score

The Tru ID system operates completely independently of the Tru platform, with the sole exception that some entity data is exported to a secure data lake for ingestion by our Quality Score algorithm. The overlap of data provenance for the Tru ID stops here.

The Tru ID is recorded on two separate, equally secure blockchains for trust and security:

Corporate Data Blockchain: ****This is where all verifications, vendor data, product catalog metadata, and corroborations are stored. This blockchain is audited by Tru as well as independent experts frequently, however, this blockchain is not available to the public.
Records Blockchain: This is where the Tru ID itself, along with any provided metadata for a given entity, is stored. There is a ‘commitment’ (hash) of the private data for this entity on the public chain, too. This blockchain is audited by Tru as well as independent experts periodically, and is available to the public.

It is not possible for data from the corporate data blockchain (private) to be accessed from the internet. We operate under stringent cybersecurity and data policies, and all access to this blockchain is strictly controlled, even to our employees.

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Copyright and trademark notice: D-U-N-S is a registered trademark of Dun & Bradstreet.