Recourse
What stands behind a verdict, and what release means today.
Three different things stand behind a ZadQ verdict, and they are easy to confuse. This page tells them apart, says who can ask for what, and states plainly what happens to a request for release today.
Three things, told apart
A positive verdict says that an accountable, verified operator stands behind an endpoint or an agent. Behind that sentence sit three mechanisms. None of them is the other.
The vendor's guarantee deposit
Under the Terms, a vendor sets aside its own money against claims, sized to its assurance grade, with ZadQ's payment-institution partner in an account of the vendor's own. ZadQ instructs releases under the Terms and never holds the funds; the deposit is never ZadQ's revenue. It is a ZadQ mechanism, distinct from anything the identity network holds. The dashboard shows each vendor the state of its own deposit.
The issuer's bond on the network
The issuer that verifies operators and signs attestations posts a bond on the MintID identity network, on the same published terms as any issuer, and can lose it. ZadQ's verifier reads that bond on every re-check: while it is below the published minimum, the positive verdict is withheld and the verdict says why. ZadQ is operated by the CONECTIA group, the network's first implementer; the issuer's bond is read the same way for everyone, and the record is public.
The accountability escrow behind an agent
When an operator mints an agent credential, the link between that agent and the accountable party behind it is sealed with the issuer. It is readable by nobody at ZadQ. The escrow protects the accountable party's accountability: it makes sure someone answers, it does not publish who.
Who can ask for release
- Of the accountability escrow
- Nobody at ZadQ. Release exists only through the network's dispute process, which is specified on the network's side and not yet activated.
- Of a vendor's deposit
- A claim under the Terms, by a buyer harmed by that vendor, through the escalation the Terms describe. ZadQ instructs the release; it never decides alone and never pays from its own funds. What a claim must contain, and what it collects, is stated in the Terms.
- Of the issuer's bond
- The network, under its published rules; never ZadQ.
What happens to a release request today
Every request for release of an accountability escrow is refused and recorded. The issuer keeps a hash-chained audit trail of its escrows: when one was sealed, when terms were opened at a renewal, when a release was requested and refused, when a cascade or a lease sweep closed it. ZadQ's operator console reads that trail as counts and verifies the chain; it resolves no record to a person, and it stores nothing but the counts. We say this plainly because the alternative is to let a funded-recourse pillar read as a promise it is not yet.
What a harmed party can do today
Before the network's dispute process is activated, recourse works through standing, not through release.
- Report with evidence. Write to ZadQ with the endpoint or the agent handle, what happened and the evidence. ZadQ passes it to the issuer; it never asks for, and never receives, a person's identity in the process.
- Revocation on evidence. An issuer that finds the evidence sufficient suspends or revokes the attestation or the credential under its published status rules. From the next status root on, that credential presents nowhere, and every verifier reads the change at the same root; a revoked operator's agents stop being verifiable with it.
- The kill switch stays with the holder. If a key leaks, the holder revokes its own credential without naming it; the revocation lands with the next status root. ZadQ revokes nothing on a holder's behalf.
- A claim against a vendor's deposit, under the Terms. Where a vendor holds a deposit, a buyer's claim follows the Terms. No claims procedure is advertised before it operates.
What the network's funded-recourse layer will add
MintID specifies a funded-recourse layer for agents: a principal's own funds, locked in a contract the principal controls, on the network where those funds live; the identity network keeps the reservation state, checks a proof of the lock and runs no smart contracts itself. At the lower bands it is a proof of balance, no lock at all. It is specified on the network's side and not yet activated. ZadQ will describe it here when it ships, with its status; until then nothing on this site promises it, and ZadQ's guarantee deposit remains a separate, ZadQ-operated mechanism under ZadQ's terms.
ZadQ is built on the MintID identity network and operated by the CONECTIA group, the network's first implementer, on the same published terms as any issuer: the same admission, the same guarantee deposit, the same status rules, verifiable by anyone on the network's public record. We disclose this relationship wherever it is relevant.
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