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ZKS Working Group

The ZKS Working Group is an open, technical body responsible for the maintenance, evolution, and stewardship of the Zero-Knowledge Sovereignty (ZKS) Standard.

The Working Group operates under the principle that sovereignty guarantees must be defined by architecture and verifiable capability constraints, not by policy declarations or trust assumptions.

Provenance and Sponsorship​

The ZKS initiative was started by EISST International Ltd, whose QuodArca product is the first implementation to submit a conformance statement. The Working Group discloses this relationship proactively: an initiating implementer is how most standards begin, and the governance mechanics described on this page - the open RFC process, CC BY 4.0 licensing, the royalty-free patent policy, and public decision records - exist precisely to keep the standard's evolution independent of any single vendor. The Working Group is actively recruiting independent implementers, academic reviewers, and auditors; participation is open as described below.

Scope and Responsibilities​

The ZKS Working Group is responsible for:

  • Maintaining the ZKS specification and associated normative documents
  • Reviewing and incorporating proposed changes through a formal RFC process
  • Publishing clarifications, errata, and minor revisions
  • Ensuring internal consistency, technical rigor, and auditability of the standard
  • Preserving vendor neutrality and architectural integrity

The Working Group does not certify implementations, endorse vendors, or provide commercial validation. It maintains a public registry of conformance statements (self-attested or third-party-audited): before listing, the Working Group checks a statement for completeness against the Section 7/8 requirements of the Standard - not for technical truth, which remains the submitting party's responsibility and is subject to public challenge (see the Assessments page for the listing and challenge process).

Participation​

Participation in the ZKS Working Group is open to:

  • Academic partners and formal verification researchers
  • System architects and security engineers
  • Cryptography and distributed systems researchers
  • Auditors, assessors, and compliance professionals
  • Organizations implementing or evaluating ZKS-compliant systems

Participation is based on technical contribution, not organizational affiliation.

Decision-Making Process​

  • Technical decisions are made by consensus where possible
  • Disputed proposals are resolved through documented technical rationale
  • All accepted changes are publicly recorded and versioned in the public repository history and RFC threads

Critical Invariant: Any proposed change that weakens or violates the formal sovereignty invariants of Section 2.1 (D ⊈ Ki for every third party i, and D ⊈ ⋃iKi for any colluding coalition, per Tenet 4) will be rejected unless accompanied by a formal proof demonstrating the validity of the new model.

The Working Group prioritizes clarity, falsifiability, and long-term security posture over backward compatibility or convenience.

Contact​

  • Email: zks.working.group [at] zks-standard.org
  • RFC submissions: see Submit an RFC

ZKS is a community-developed technical standard. Governance exists to preserve technical integrity, not to grant authority or endorsement.