EBSI projects
Random Red Ltd. - Measurements and Digital Calibration Certificates
Helping European national and private actors increase the reliability of scientific measurement and calibration processes across industries and borders.
The vision
A consortium aiming to involve all laboratories and national accreditation bodies across Europe.
Together, their vision is to leverage blockchain technology to improve the verification processes in metrology, including the calibration and inspection of measuring instruments, the issuance and verification of credentials for laboratories and legal entities, and the facilitation of cross-border recognition of these credentials.
The challenge
Certification and accreditation processes are complex, as well as cross-border recognition.
Traditional certification and accreditation processes can be lengthy, requiring manual verification and paperwork. Manual processes also entail higher costs for both public bodies and private entities, from administrative overhead to human errors. Without a tamper-proof system, there's potential for data manipulation or fraud in certification and accreditation processes. Stakeholders do not have an immediate view of the status of their certificate/accreditation, which can lead to delays or mistrust. Even if terminologies are translated, their meaning and implications could vary subtly between countries. For machine-readable systems, semantic inconsistencies can create serious bottlenecks and information resides in isolated databases, making it hard to consolidate and validate data across different countries.
The central challenge of this project lies in effectively addressing these inefficiencies and complications by integrating the European Blockchain Service Infrastructure (EBSI) with the existing metrology frameworks across EU member states. This task demands a nuanced approach to ensure seamless technological integration and interoperability of diverse national systems, adherence to EU regulations and standardization, and maintaining robust data privacy and security in line with GDPR.
A significant part of the challenge also includes fostering widespread stakeholder adoption amidst potential resistance to change, ensuring reliable cross-border recognition of metrological data, and navigating the complex legal and regulatory landscape of the EU. Additionally, securing adequate resources and funding for the development, implementation, and sustained operation of the system is crucial.
The opportunity
The creation of a transformative metrology system across the European Union.
This initiative stands to significantly enhance trust and accuracy in metrological data, offering a notable improvement in the reliability of measurements and calibrations crucial to various industries. It promises a streamlined approach to cross-border operations, facilitating easier trade and cooperation between EU states with universally accepted and easily verifiable metrological credentials.
Blockchain can serve as a single, immutable ledger that can replace fragmented databases, thereby streamlining the certification and accreditation processes. By automating and digitalizing metrology processes, there is a direct cut down on administrative overhead, speed up processes, and thereby reducing costs. Providing a tamper-proof, transparent system will significantly enhance trust among all stakeholders, both public and private.
By adopting this cutting-edge technology, the EU positions itself as a leader in digital innovation within the realm of metrology. This not only contributes to economic efficiency and growth, particularly in precision-dependent sectors, but also aligns with EU goals of digital integration and market harmonization.
A Web3 presentation and verification infrastructure for measurement and calibration brings together three main technologies:
- Digital Wallets: used by public and private institutions to receive, store, and send credentials.
- Verifiable Credentials: for formatting, presenting, and exchanging credential data in a machine-friendly way.
- Blockchain: for delivering a highly secure, resilient, and decentralised way of verifying credential information.
The project
Establishing a new digital verification process for measurement and calibration in the EU.
What has been achieved is a practical application of EBSI in specific areas of metrology, such as instrument calibration, issuance of metrological credentials, and their cross-border recognition.
By utilizing EBSI's capabilities, the project streamlines processes for calibration and inspection of measuring instruments, the issuance and verification of credentials for laboratories and legal entities, and the facilitation of cross-border recognition of these credentials, to reduce bureaucratic overhead, and increase transparency and trust across member states.
Given that EU and national metrology laws are generally aligned, Random Red Ltd. has the opportunity to create a EU-wide standard, eliminating semantic and procedural barriers. The project could enable easier and more efficient cross-border recognitions for measuring instruments, addressing even non-jurisdictional barriers like language and semantics. Given that accreditation bodies, metrology institutes, laboratories and measuring instrument owners (companies, factories, laboratories, etc.) are already potential end-users, Random Red could serve as a blueprint for public-private collaborations in other sectors.
EBSI allows Random Red to design, build and operate the next generation of decentralised measurement and calibration services, with the objective to:
- Shape unifying framework for metrology across the EU.
- Make metrology processes machine-readable and digitally enabled.
- Facilitate cross-border recognition by resolving non-jurisdictional issues such as language and semantic inconsistencies.
- Enhance the security and transparency of the metrology certification process.
The scenario
Discover the scenarios.
1. Calibration Certificate Verification for a Measuring Instrument.
- Igor, a Laboratory Technician in Croatia, works at a laboratory (LX) accredited by the Croatian National Accreditation Body (NAB). The NAB 1 issues him a laboratory accreditation Verifiable Credential, which they 2 store on EBSI.
- Maja, a metrology expert in a factory/company (FX), needs to calibrate a measuring instrument. Before she sends
the instrument to a laboratory for calibration, she must check that the laboratory is correctly accredited.
Maja 3 checks laboratory accreditation on EBSI and sends the instrument to Igor's laboratory for calibration. - Igor's laboratory receives the measuring instrument for calibration from Maja (FX). After completing the calibration, the laboratory (LX) 4 issues a so-called Digital Calibration Certificate as a Verifiable Credential (VC) for the instrument, which Maja 5 stores in the factory's/company's digital wallet.
- A German manufacturing company (GX), needing to use FX's calibrated instrument for a project, 6 requests from FX the Digital Calibration Certificate. FX 7 presents the certificate from their digital wallet.
- The German company 8 verifies the authenticity of the Digital Calibration Certificate against the EBSI ledger. Thereby, LX's laboratory accreditation credentials authenticity is 9 verified against EBSI ledger. Upon successful verification, the German company accepts the calibration certificate and proceeds to use the instrument for precision manufacturing.
- During a routine inspection, German authorities 10 request proof of the instrument's calibration from FX and/or LX. Maja 11 presents the Digital Calibration Certificate on behalf of FX and/or LX, which the German authorities 12 verify against the EBSI ledger. Thereby, LX's laboratory accreditation credentials authenticity is also 13 verified against EBSI ledger. The instrument is found to be compliant with the necessary standards.
- Annually, the measuring instrument requires recalibration. Upon Maja's 14 request, Igor's laboratory LX recalibrates the instrument and 15 issues a new Digital Calibration Certificate, which is again 16 stored and managed via FX's digital wallet.
When the instrument is later loaned, for example, to an Italian company, the process repeats with the Italian authorities, i.e. Maja 17 presents the Digital Calibration Certificate to the Italian authorities, which can then 18 verify the credential against the EBSI ledger. Additionally, LX's laboratory accreditation credentials authenticity is 19 verified against EBSI ledger. The calibration data becomes a trusted part of the instrument's history, facilitating its use in different EU countries.
Remarks
This scenario is generally applicable also to so-called Legal Metrology, which encompasses several key areas, including consumer protection, trade, health, safety, and environmental conservation, by providing standardised measurement results that are legally binding.
In such scenario, in place of above defined factory/company (FX) can be any private or public entity subjected to corresponding European and national Metrology Laws, e.g. company trading agricultural products (and thereby measuring weight of its products using accurate weight measuring instruments), company that operates a chain of gas stations across country borders is committed to providing customers with accurately measured quantities of fuel (using accurate measuring instruments for measuring volume), etc.
In this scenario:
- Measuring instruments are not calibrated, but verified for usage on the market, i.e. they would not get verifiable accreditation (VC) related to calibration (DCC), but a VC which confirms the instrument verification;
- Instead of calibration carried out by laboratory (LX) which is accredited by a national accreditation body, here is carried out a legal verification by a legal entity which is licensed by a corresponding TAO (e.g. national metrology institute/institution).
The project plan
Current implementation stage and plan.
Next steps
Mobilisation of the ecosystem is key to driving adoption.
The project's next steps involve advancing from conceptualization to practical implementation and broader adoption. This progression entails detailed planning and system design to ensure seamless integration with existing metrology processes across EU member states. Engaging with key stakeholders, including National Metrology Institutes and National Accreditation Bodies, is crucial for collaboration and ensuring the system meets diverse needs.
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