A listing is only worth reading if it tells you how much work went into confirming it. The ladder exists so that a self-asserted entry and a verified one can sit in the same directory without being mistaken for each other.
Most marks on the internet make a single claim and leave the reader to guess what stands behind it. The claim is usually the strongest one the issuer can defend, and the reader has no way to tell a checked fact from an asserted one.
The ladder inverts that. Each rung names the work that was actually done, and the entry carries its rung, so a reader never has to guess. The lowest rung is the honest one: the registrant said it, nobody checked it, and the listing says as much on its face.
The registrant asserts, nobody verifies, and the listing says so. What a Level 0 registrant does is support the work: it is a statement about the registrant's own stance, not a finding about the registrant's practice. Supporting a work item is a coherent thing to do. Conforming to one that has not been published is not.
The category is the honesty mark. It attests to exactly one thing, which is that the entry is what the registrant says it is and has been checked by no one.
Corrections at this rung are noted.
Level 1 is achieved by providing a receipt. The controller's receipt page issues a receipt that points to its notice, and its withdrawal route answers. Its machine-readable records resolve: the controller identity record, the notice with its version, and a notice event log that contains the current version. The Lab checks all of it before the level is granted, and again every 24 hours while it is held.
Level 1 is requested by the controller, never assigned. A missed check shows as overdue after 24 hours and becomes correction required after 48, and the badge says so. The registry holds itself to the same test as the entries it lists.
Level 1 is not inherently paid. Payment is a separate question from assurance, and conflating the two is how directories turn into trade in reputation.
A correction at this rung requires a correction event to be recorded.
The entry is verified against an authoritative registry rather than accepted as given. At this rung and above, the party can provide and receive receipts that can be notarised, which is what makes an exchange between two parties evidential rather than merely recorded. Notarisation is a Level 2 capability and not a Level 0 one.
Corrections are not permitted at Level 2 and above. A new registration is made and parts of the profile are transferred, because a record an authoritative registry has verified cannot be quietly amended.
The entry is not only verified once but watched, and its current state is signalled rather than inferred from the date of the last check. A verified record with no monitoring tells a reader what was true on one day.
New registration on change, as at Level 2.
Access is evaluated live rather than settled in advance. A request carries a credential at a stated assurance level, it is logged to a party that is not the requester, the authority is granted at the time of asking rather than held standing, and it is bounded in time and scope. Level 3 and below are properties of the paper. Level 4 is a property of the request.
New registration on change, as at Level 2.
The 0PN Registry is operated by Open Consent Group Ltd. Global Privacy Rights runs its Canada node from Montréal, where Transparency Lab, our lab, carries out the Level 1 checks. Our own entry sits at Level 0 on the same terms as every other entry at that level. Nobody has checked it. Version 0.3.1, effective 24 September 2026.
A directory operator that claimed a higher rung for itself than it could evidence would have answered the question the ladder exists to ask.
The trial is open for organisations willing to publish a self-asserted entry and have it listed as exactly that. Nothing is checked, nothing is charged, and the listing carries the Level 0 statement on its face.
Registration collects only what Level 0 requires, not the full record schema: the organisation's legal name, the jurisdiction it is registered in, a resolvable identifier for the service being listed, a contact address for notice, and the date of the assertion. Five fields, so the form can be finished.
Registration is handled by the 0PN directory. Open Consent Group Ltd operates the register and issues the badge; Global Privacy Rights runs the Canada node.
It is not a certification, and it does not attest that the registrant complies with anything. It records that a named organisation made a statement on a date and was willing to have that statement listed, with the fact that nobody checked it printed alongside. That is a smaller claim than most marks make, and it is the whole of the claim.