Efforts to verify identity without exposing sensitive personal data are moving from theory into patent filings and public funding applications. In a new European filing, The Hashgraph Group, operating within the Hedera ecosystem, and Italian ultra-wideband sensing firm Truesense describe a framework they call Continuous Identity Trust Infrastructure (CITI), designed to link physical presence events to decentralized digital identity credentials.
The companies also say they have applied for €74.3 million in EU funding to help deploy the system across sectors such as transport, smart-city infrastructure, and enterprise environments. While the initiative remains at the application stage, it signals growing interest in “continuous” identity models, where verification is based on auditable events rather than static credentials.
What CITI is designed to do
According to the filing and funding request described in the announcement, CITI aims to create high-assurance evidence that a specific individual was physically present at a specific location at a specific time, while keeping underlying location and personal data private.
The approach combines three components:
- Ultra-wideband (UWB) spatial sensing to detect presence within a defined zone.
- Decentralised identifiers (DIDs) and verifiable credentials (VCs) to represent identity and attestations in a standards-aligned digital format.
- Zero-knowledge proofs (ZKPs) to enable verification by third parties without revealing the full set of underlying data.
The companies describe a workflow in which a UWB presence event is cryptographically bound to a person’s decentralized identifier stored in an identity wallet. A presence binding token and related elements, including a timestamp and credential hash, are then anchored to a distributed ledger network. They further state that selective disclosure via ZKPs would allow verifiers to confirm validity without accessing sensitive personal or location information.
Patent coverage and timing
The announcement states that the European patent application was filed on 4 April 2026 with the European Patent Office, designating 44 or more European countries. The document also indicates an ongoing path toward submission to the United States Patent and Trademark Office.
In practical terms, patent filings do not guarantee commercialization or adoption, but they often provide a window into where companies are placing technical and legal bets. In this case, the emphasis is on cryptographically linking real-world events to verifiable digital records in a way that can be checked by outside parties.
Why privacy-preserving presence attestation matters
Identity verification in regulated environments typically faces a trade-off between auditability and privacy. Organizations want evidence that an access event, participation, or entitlement claim is legitimate. At the same time, regulators and users increasingly expect that systems minimize exposure of personal data, especially location data.
CITI’s stated goal is to reduce that friction by using zero-knowledge cryptography for selective disclosure and by issuing verifiable credentials that can be independently validated. This aligns with a broader direction in the industry: moving from “credential sharing” toward cryptographic attestations that can be verified without disclosing raw identity attributes.
However, adoption will depend on implementation details that are not fully specified in the public summary, including how UWB sensing is calibrated in different environments, how wallets are managed at scale, and what verifiers need to integrate to validate proofs reliably and efficiently.
Hedera ecosystem context
The companies characterize the solution as being anchored on distributed ledger technology within the Hedera ecosystem. For industry watchers, this reflects a continued effort to position enterprise-grade identity and compliance tooling as an application layer for public or permissioned ledgers, rather than identity sitting entirely off-chain.
In these architectures, the ledger is typically used to anchor cryptographic commitments or hashes so that later audits can detect tampering. The key question for buyers is usually whether the system reduces operational cost and compliance workload compared with established identity and audit systems, and whether integrations can meet performance, reliability, and governance requirements.
Regulatory alignment and EU policy backdrop
The announcement ties CITI to multiple EU initiatives and regulatory frameworks, including requirements that push organizations toward secure and digitally identifiable processes. It also references the EU’s digital identity wallet framework, which is scheduled for rollout by member states by the end of 2026, and it describes alignment with standards used for decentralized identity and verifiable credentials.
It also places the funding application within the IPCEI-CIC program context, which is intended to support important projects of common European interest in areas such as compute and related digital infrastructure. If selected, projects like this would likely be assessed on technical feasibility, security posture, interoperability, and measurable deployment plans.
Potential use cases, and the limits of announcements
From the described architecture, plausible deployments include controlled physical access, ticketing and event entry validation, and onboarding or access for regulated facilities. The companies also suggest transport and smart-city use where presence credentials could support compliance and reduce certain forms of fraud associated with transferable digital proofs.
Still, it is important to distinguish between technical possibility and real-world rollout. Systems that combine hardware sensing, identity wallets, cryptographic proofs, and ledger anchoring require multi-stakeholder coordination. They also depend on user acceptance, clear governance for who can verify credentials, and rigorous security testing to ensure that privacy-preserving claims remain robust against misuse.
What to watch next
With a decision expected in early 2027, the next phase will likely focus on whether the funding request is approved, how deployment partners are selected, and what interoperability approach is taken for credentials and wallets across different jurisdictions and organizations.
For the broader market, CITI is part of a larger push toward verifiable credentials backed by cryptography, where identity verification is increasingly event-based and privacy-preserving. If the approach can demonstrate reliable presence attestation and practical integration pathways, it could influence how enterprises and public entities think about physical-digital identity assurance in Europe.
