Level of Trust Information

Introduction

ARDC provide a valuable resource in the form of the loan of IP addresses free of charge to our members. In order to ensure that we are not the victim of fraudulent attempts to obtain address space, and also to ensure that we have up to date, and accurate contact information for our members in case of any issues that may arise, for example abuse reports, we use a 'Level of Trust' model to validate our members.

What is Level of Trust?

Level of Trust is a method of checking the identity and amateur radio license status of our members.

How does it work?

It works by validating specific personal data such as your email address, your ham radio license, etc. For example, when you first register you have to validate your email address by responding to an email the system sends you. Doing this means that we know you have received the email and there is a good probability that the email address belongs to you. Validating your email opens up additional menu options.

The next step is to request that your call sign (or call signs if you have more than one) is validated, this will open up access to DNS and Networks. You can then validate your cellphone by entering the PIN that we send you in an SMS message if you wish (although this is an optional step). You can enter your full postal address and request it be validated, although you don't need to do this unless you are planning on requesting address space larger than a /25 or you are planning on requesting BGP address space.

What about my data privacy?

One of the big advantages of this method of validation, is that we don't store copies of any of your personal documents. You enter onto this portal only the personal data you choose to share with us. When you wish to validate any of these personal details you just have to show your document(s) to the validator, your documents are then visually checked. The validator then updates the portal to attest that they have viewed your documents and that they match the details you entered on this portal. In most cases this can be done by you uploading scans of the appropriate documents to the ticket, once a LoT ticket is approved it is automatically deleted, along with all the PII it contains, i.e. the document scans you uploaded, the validator attaches a note to your LoT entry that states how they validated your request, without adding any PII. If you prefer not to upload scanned documents, please let the validator know in the ticket as we can arrange a video call as an alternative, where you show the validator your documents so they can validate your request.

One thing to note: if your validation fails and the validator rejects your request, then the ticket is NOT deleted (so you have a chance to read the reason for the rejection). In this case it is your responsibility to delete the ticket once you have read it.