GATE Trust Investigations

Inevitably in any Trust system, open or anonymous, there will be disputes and there must be a predefined process for addressing disputes. As an inherently subjective system, the GATE Trust System will lead to many honest differences of opinion and there will always be people who will misuse the GATE Trust System, perhaps in a retaliatory fashion. The best approach to such problems is for all affected parties to negotiate a mutually satisfactory outcome. This negotiation will itself be public in the sense that while a rating can be changed and it will be the changed value that is used in any Trust Score calculation, the fact that it was changed cannot be hidden from view of other members in good standing. Thus there is an incentive built in to get the rating correct the first time for public disputes can be unpleasant and embarrassing.

Even with such motivations and incentives, unresolved disputes will happen and when they do each party may issue a GATE Trust Investigation Request. Each request will be handled by GATE management according to the published GATE Trust Policy – in essence, GATE will use all registered information (using GATE's Registered Information Objects Repository), with captured logs and auditing events as the only data for the investigation. While there is an appeal process, in general GATE Management's judgment and decisions are final.

SANCTIONS

GATE Village is a self-regulating body in charge of enforcing the Community of trust. There is no greater sin within the GATE Village than a Breach of Trust and GATE: Global Alliance of Trusted Experts Inc. has a near-zero¹ tolerance for any Breach of Trust. The default sanction for any Member or Vendor found guilty of Breach of Trust via the GATE Trust Investigation process shall be expulsion from GATE Village. GATE management reserves the right to assign lesser sanctions at its sole discretion as befits the circumstances where alternative sanctions could include “public” (GATE Village) apologies, a reduction in Trust Score, a “Mark of Distrust”, or other mechanisms as may be devised by GATE intended as incentives for other members to not breach their trusted relationships.

For the purposes of GATE Trust Investigations, GATE Vendors are equivalent to GATE Members and are subject to the same sort of sanctions – this is akin to “Truth in Advertising”.

It must be understood that the integrity of GATE Village and of the GATE Trust Score is of paramount importance to GATE and GATE Shareholders. No member or vendor is more important than that integrity and that integrity will not be compromised for the sake of any GATE Member, Vendor or Employee..

GATE Employees and GATE Management are subject to the GATE Employee: Conflict of Interest Policy, which is more stringent than the GATE Trust Policy. There is only one sanction for any GATE Employee: termination of employment. GATE Employees have all the same rights of appeal as GATE Members. GATE Management will appoint an independent outside firm to conduct any Trust Investigations (with merit) against or initiated from GATE Employees (according to the same Trust Investigation process as followed by GATE) and GATE will abide by the verdict of this firm.

Confidentiality of Proceedings

What happens in GATE Village stays in GATE Village; except as may be lawfully ordered through subpoena or other means recognized within the laws of Ontario, Canada, all GATE Trust Investigation Reports, verdicts, sanctions, proceedings, and/or findings will remain within the GATE Village community. All GATE Members agree upon membership to uphold the confidentiality of GATE Village matters including but not restricted to GATE Trust Investigations. Except where GATE Members may reasonably believe there exists illegal activity, in which case GATE Members are under a GATE Trust Obligation to report such activity, GATE Members may not divulge any details of any GATE Village transaction to non-GATE Members and that confidentiality remains intact even if and when the Member ceases to be a Member (regardless of the circumstances of their leaving).

Because GATE is not a court of law, because it will not take on that burden of proof, because it doesn't allow for “Fair Representation” or offer any “right to confront accusers”, it would be patently unfair and very likely libelous to release any details of any Trust Investigation, including what parties might be involved and what sanctions are levied.

GATE will aggressively and proactively prosecute to the fullest extent of the law any GATE Entity that publicly (outside the confines of the GATE Village) breaches the GATE Trust Policy. Such breaches are seen as an attack on the integrity of GATE itself and GATE will defend it's integrity relentlessly.

False Investigation Requests and False Information

It is a Breach of Trust to knowingly make a false accusation of Breach of Trust of another GATE Entity. While reasonable people can and do disagree at times, if in GATE Management's opinion there was no basis for the initial Trust Investigation Request, GATE Management may make a summary finding of Breach of Trust against the requester and issue sanctions as above.

The same accusation of Breach of Trust and the same sanctions will be provided to any party knowingly providing false evidence to any GATE Trust Investigation. While GATE does not represent itself as a court of law, nor will it generally function as a court system, it does work under the less stringent Civil Law notion of “preponderance of the evidence” rather than “beyond reasonable doubt”.

The best defense against false accusations is use of the GATE Registration System of Record during the entire business transaction; these records will always be admissible by GATE and treated as de-facto truth. The GATE Registration System of Record is only accessible by the GATE Information Security Office, which conducts any GATE Trust Investigations. Contents of the GATE Registration System of Record exist only for the duration of the business transaction (plus alloted time for issuing a Trust Investigation and any required time for the appeal process to complete), they will be deleted as soon as GATE can be certain they will not be required for any GATE Trust Investigation.