ISO 5009 – Identifying organizational roles
ISO, or the International Standards Organization, is an independent body that provides standards. These standards define the quality, safety, and efficiency of a business’s products or services.
In 2022, the organization released a new standard, ISO 5009, to recognize official organizational roles in a business entity with digital IDs. These IDs can be used to authenticate the identity of authorized representatives to meet the KYC and related regulatory requirements of business transactions.
ISO 5009
The Global Legal Entity Identifier Foundation (GLEIF) first proposed ISO 5009 to clarify and structure the information in the two LEI-based digital tools.
The standard, ISO 5009, is used to verify the identity and position of individuals representing an organization (like a business or company) and is intended for inclusion in current and future digital assets. This will be achieved through the global uniformity of two digital assets under the Legal Entity Identifier (LEI) digital ID umbrella: verified LEI (vLEI) and digital certificates embedded with LEIs.
An LEI is a 20-character, alpha-numerical code based on ISO 17442 that links to reference information identifying legal entities participating in financial transactions. It is a universal identifier that provides answers about the entity’s ownership structure, “who is who” and “who owns whom”.
Since an individual cannot obtain an LEI, the vLEI can fill in some gaps. When an entity receives a vLEI, ISO 5009 can issue credentials to authorized members of the organization, which covers the LEI, the individual’s name, and official organizational roles. ISO 5009 will specify the optional role extension contained in an X.509 public-key certificate (a digital certificate used in many internet protocols) with embedded LEIs as outlined in ISO 17442 for digital certificates embedded with LEIs.
ISO says the 5009 standard can be used as an effective and universal way to authenticate people who act on behalf of organizations. This includes signing documents that need verification with absolute certainty, such as sensitive business deals and company agreements.
