Two ISO standards define the seal, one VDSIC specification details it, and ETSI, IETF and NIST references cover trust and cryptography.
VDSIC KB036
Roles, data structures, Manifest files, TSLs/LoTLs, certificate profiles, production and verification, RFF. Available to members and partners under a non-disclosure agreement.
VDS data format and usage
Header, Payload, Signature and optional Auxiliary Data blocks
Guidelines for VDS trust and interoperability
Governance, ecosystem roles and trust mechanisms
Trusted Lists
Base format of VDSIC TSLs and the Root LoTL
Policy requirements for TSPs issuing certificates
Issuer signing certificates
Signature verification procedures
Verification chain
Current practice: ETSI EN 319 102-1
X.509 certificate and CRL profile
Certificates and revocation lists
Online Certificate Status Protocol (OCSP)
Revocation checks
Digital Signature Standard (ECDSA)
Seal signatures
Cited as 186-4 on vdsic.org; current edition is 186-5
Secure Hash Standard (SHA-256)
Hashing
Binary serialization format
VDS Payload serialization
Data Matrix bar code symbology
Carrier with C40 encoding
Base16, Base32 and Base64 encodings
Text encodings
The data: URL scheme
Digital carriers
Country codes
Issuing country
UUID and OID procedures
Identifiers and policy OIDs
Issuing Agency Codes
IAC registration
Visible Digital Seals for travel documents
Visas and emergency travel documents
Ecodesign for Sustainable Products Regulation
Digital Product Passport
Source: vdsic.org/specifications, read 23 September 2026.