What is Tamga Network?

In the previous chapters we saw how a digital credential is signed, how it sits in a wallet and how only the information that is needed gets shown. One question is left: when an employer in Tashkent sees a credential issued in Baku, how do they know that the institution behind it really exists and is allowed to issue it? Tamga Network is the shared answer to that question.

In short

Tamga Network is a shared trust network for the Turkic world. It provides three things: open rules that everyone follows in the same way, signed trust liststrust listA signed, versioned list of a country's issuers, verifiers and wallet providers. that say which institutions can be trusted, and open-source software that applies those rules. The credential itself is never written to the network; the network only answers the question “whom can you trust?”.

Formats and protocols are the same as the European Union’s digital identity standards. So a credential issued in Tamga can also work with wallets and verifiers that speak the EU’s language.

What it does

• Writes and publishes the rules: who can join, what each role must comply with, how a credential type is defined. These rules are collected in the Tamga ARF.
• Runs the trust lists: it publishes each country’s list, and the list of lists that points to all of them, signed, versioned and open to everyone.
• Keeps shared data: the catalogue of credential types, field names and schemas.
• Provides open code: packages for verification, issuance and the wallet core, plus conformance tests.

What it doesn’t do

The network collects no personal data: credentials stay on the person’s phone, and no personal data is written to lists or logs. The network never signs anyone’s credential on their behalf; the signature always belongs to the issuing institution. And the network sells nothing: Tamga Network is a network, not a company. Companies that want to offer commercial services such as integration or support do so outside the network, under their own names; the network’s rules are the same for all.

Why a “network”?

Because trust doesn’t come from a single centre. The institution signs the credential, the state or a body it authorises recognises the institution in its list, and anyone can verify the list. The network is the shared rules and the shared language that tie these pieces together. The next pages look at them one by one.