Robot Registry Foundation Governance Proposal

The Problem

Robot identity infrastructure today has no independent authority. Three gaps make the current situation untenable:

• Manufacturer-controlled registries with no interoperability. Each manufacturer operates its own robot registry on its own terms. When a manufacturer changes its policies, exits the market, or is acquired, the identity records of deployed robots can disappear. There is no shared namespace and no guarantee that a robot's identity will remain resolvable over its operational lifetime.
• No neutral dispute resolution. There is currently no body to adjudicate conflicts over Robot Registry Number prefixes, manufacturer impersonation, or registry abuse. Legal action in national courts — slow, expensive, and jurisdictionally fragmented — is the only recourse.
• No registry of last resort. No entity has an explicit mandate to preserve the root registry and guarantee that deployed robots can always resolve their identity. Infrastructure that depends on any single commercial entity's survival is fragile by design — and incompatible with safety-critical applications.

Mission

The Robot Registry Foundation (RRF) will operate the root RCAN robot registry as neutral, independent, public infrastructure — analogous to IANA/ICANN for the domain name system, or the Linux Foundation for open-source governance.

The RRF will serve as the registry of last resort, ensuring that robot identity infrastructure remains available and trustworthy regardless of any single organization's commercial fate.

Governance Principles

Proposed Board Composition

The founding board will consist of 10 voting seats plus non-voting government observers.

Simple majority (6/10) for operational decisions · Supermajority (8/10) for charter amendments, policy changes, or dissolution.

Membership Tiers

Registry of Last Resort

The RRF's core operational guarantee is continuity of the root registry — independent of any single organization's survival, including the RRF itself.

• Data escrow: Weekly cryptographically signed snapshots deposited with at least two independent escrow agents (e.g., Software Heritage Foundation, Internet Archive).
• Software escrow: The complete registry software stack is escrowed alongside data. Any organization can reconstruct and operate a functionally equivalent root registry.
• Succession plan: A named successor organization assumes operations if the RRF dissolves without an alternative arrangement.
• No data hostage: Registry data shall never be used as collateral or transferred to a for-profit entity without member consent.

EU AI Act Relevance

The EU AI Act (Regulation 2024/1689) Art. 49 requires providers of high-risk AI systems to register in the EU database before market placement. Autonomous robots under Annex III — particularly those operating in critical infrastructure or in physical proximity to persons — are likely to qualify.

The RRF is a candidate independent registration body accepted across jurisdictions, reducing compliance burden for global robot deployments. RCAN's RRNs and RURIs provide the technical identity layer regulators require: a unique persistent identifier per robot, a structured namespace for rapid regulatory lookup, and an audit chain linking physical robot to registered identity.

How to Get Involved

The Robot Registry Foundation does not yet exist as a legal entity. We are actively seeking co-founders and endorsers.

→ Join the discussion on GitHub issue #13

We are particularly seeking input from robot manufacturers implementing RCAN, national standards bodies and regulatory agencies, academic robotics departments, and civil society organizations working on AI accountability and public safety.