Charter of the Global Alliance for Media Authentication and Cooperation (GAMAC)

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Preamble

In an age when synthetic media can imitate faces, voices and bylines with increasing fidelity, journalists and audiences alike need an infrastructure they can trust. Authentication infrastructure, however, becomes dangerous when controlled by one company, one government or one algorithm: a single point of failure becomes a single point of control over who may be heard.

The Global Alliance for Media Authentication and Cooperation (GAMAC) is established to anchor a global Root of Trust for media authenticity — one in which real journalists and the audiences they serve can find each other across borders, languages and platforms. The Alliance is conceived as a decentralized, multi-stakeholder commons, governed collectively by media organizations, cultural entities and technical communities.

This work responds to the aims set out in the Global Digital Compact for an open, free, secure and inclusive digital future, and in particular to its calls for information integrity and for cooperation on trustworthy artificial intelligence. The Compact is cited here solely as the normative backdrop against which this Alliance operates. Nothing in this Charter, and no activity of the Alliance, shall be represented as an endorsement, adoption, certification or partnership by the United Nations. The Alliance notes, for the record, that a written submission by its initiating organization — Respondent ID 988, civil society category — to the United Nations Global Dialogue on AI Governance is publicly listed at un.org; this fact creates no status, approval or mandate of any kind.

The Alliance is initiated by the International Communication Organization (ICO), an independent non-governmental, not-for-profit organization registered in the United States of America, which provides the founding technical protocol — the International Certified Online-journalist Professional Credential (ICOPC) — and serves as the Alliance's secretariat during its founding phase. GAMAC is not, and shall not become, an ICO membership programme: membership is open, governance is distributed, and verification standards are co-governed by the members.

We adopt this Charter to give that commitment binding institutional form.

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Article 1 — Name, Nature and Legal Status

1.1 The Alliance shall be named the Global Alliance for Media Authentication and Cooperation, abbreviated GAMAC (hereinafter "the Alliance").

1.2 The Alliance is a decentralized, multi-stakeholder, not-for-profit alliance of media organizations, cultural and educational entities, technical communities, and individual professional affiliates. It is established for public-interest purposes and operates on a cost-recovery, non-distribution basis.

1.3 During the founding phase, GAMAC itself is not a separate legal entity. The International Communication Organization acts as the Alliance's secretariat and legal host: it provides the Alliance with administrative, technical and legal scaffolding, holds its assets and marks in trust, and is the counterparty for the Alliance's operational undertakings. The founding phase and its exit conditions are defined in Article 5.

1.4 Once the conditions for exiting the founding phase are met, the General Assembly may decide to incorporate the Alliance as an independent legal entity under a jurisdiction of its choosing. Upon incorporation, assets, marks and secretariat functions shall be transferred to the new entity in accordance with Articles 7 and 11.

1.5 The registered working domain of the Alliance during the founding phase is gamacalliance.org, operated under the responsibility of the Secretariat.

Article 2 — Mission and Objectives

2.1 The mission of the Alliance is to build and govern a global Root of Trust for media authenticity in the age of synthetic media, so that a verification standard protecting a correspondent in Geneva equally protects one in Nairobi, Jakarta or Lima.

2.2 The Alliance pursues its mission through three pillars:

1. A governance blueprint for interoperable authentication. The Alliance develops, maintains and governs open professional standards for issuing, verifying and revoking journalist credentials, designed for interoperability across borders and alongside open content-provenance approaches (including C2PA-style Content Credentials), so that trust does not stop at any platform's walled garden.
2. Inclusive capacity building for the Global South. The Alliance transfers verification capability — training, open-source tooling and technology transfer — to media organizations in the Global South, with the stated goal of supporting 500 or more media organizations by the end of 2026, and continuing thereafter. This figure is a goal, not a claim of current performance.
3. Data dignity for cultural heritage. The Alliance develops safeguards so that linguistic and cultural diversity is protected rather than flattened into a single data model, including principles for authorized use of cultural expressions and for the return of economic and moral benefit to originating communities and minority-language groups.

2.3 The Alliance shall not operate as a commercial platform, shall not sell verification as a paid service, and shall not condition participation on purchase of any product or service.

Article 3 — Guiding Principles

The Alliance shall be guided by the following principles, which apply equally to every member, including ICO:

3.1 Distributed authority. Issuance rules, verification standards and revocation are governed collectively. No single member — including ICO — holds a veto over who counts as a verified journalist.

3.2 Radical transparency. Verification results and the public registry are open to inspection; governance rules, financial summaries and audit findings are published rather than kept behind closed doors.

3.3 Interoperability by design. The credential and its protocols shall be designed to inter-operate across borders and with open standards, and shall avoid proprietary lock-in.

3.4 Privacy by default. Only professional identity data is published. Personal data shall be minimized, biometric data shall not be placed on the public ledger, and revocation shall work without exposing private information. Verification shall be possible without tracking who checks which credential.

3.5 Independence. The Alliance shall remain free from control by any government, corporation or political power. Funding shall not be accepted where it would compromise this independence; funding without conditionalities is preferred.

3.6 Free and open membership. Membership is open to all organizations and individuals that genuinely share the Alliance's mission and satisfy the admission criteria of Article 4. Membership is free of charge, forever.

Article 4 — Membership

4.1 Categories of membership

1. Voting (Fully-fledged) Members. Media organizations — newsrooms and news outlets, journalists' associations and unions, and media-development bodies — that are legally established, editorially active and in good standing. Voting Members hold one vote each in the General Assembly.
2. Cultural Entities. Cultural and educational institutions, including heritage, linguistic, academic and arts bodies, that contribute to the data-dignity pillar. Cultural Entities participate with full deliberative rights and limited voting rights: they may vote on matters touching cultural heritage, linguistic diversity and data dignity, and on Charter amendments and dissolution, but shall not vote in elections reserved to media members, nor shall they alone determine professional issuance standards. The General Assembly may refine this allocation by ordinary resolution.
3. Technical Community Members. Open-source developer collectives, security researchers and standards bodies contributing to the technical work of the Alliance. They participate with full deliberative rights and limited voting rights on the same model as Cultural Entities, except that they may vote on technical standards and technical roadmaps.
4. Individual Affiliates. Individual journalists and media professionals, admitted either on the recommendation of a Voting Member or, where no such member exists, following review by the Secretariat. Individual Affiliates participate in working groups and may attend the General Assembly, but do not hold an individual vote; journalists are represented in governance through their member organizations.

4.2 Admission criteria

An applicant shall: (a) be a genuine, verifiable organization or person exercising the stated function — shell entities, fictitious outlets and synthetic personas shall not be admitted; (b) endorse this Charter and the Alliance's ethical commitments; (c) accept the Membership Commitment Letter; and (d) operate in a manner consistent with the principles of Article 3.

4.3 Application and admission procedure

1. Founding phase. Applications are submitted through the official form at gamacalliance.org/join and are reviewed by the Interim Steering Committee on the recommendation of the Secretariat, under the standard operating procedure for admission. Each applicant admitted during this phase is recorded as a Founding Member.
2. Permanent phase. From the first election of the Permanent Steering Committee, admission rules are determined by the General Assembly on the proposal of the Steering Committee; the Secretariat retains administrative processing, and no admission may be refused contrary to the published criteria without reasons being given in writing.

4.4 Voluntary withdrawal

Any member may withdraw at any time by written notice to the Secretariat. Withdrawal takes effect thirty (30) days after notice. Credentials issued through the withdrawing member shall be handled under Article 6.7.

4.5 Suspension and expulsion

1. A member may be suspended or expelled for: material breach of this Charter or of the ethical commitments; fraud or misrepresentation in the application; fabrication or systematic distribution of disinformation; misuse, sale or counterfeiting of credentials; conduct that damages the integrity of the public registry; or conduct inconsistent with the Alliance's public-interest character.
2. No member shall be suspended or expelled without written notice of the grounds, a reasonable opportunity to be heard, and a reasoned decision. During the founding phase the decision is taken by the Interim Steering Committee, with review by the Ethics & Grievance Panel once established; thereafter by the Permanent Steering Committee, subject to appeal to the General Assembly.
3. Suspension shall be the proportionate first response wherever the breach is remediable. Emergency suspension of credential-verification services may be imposed where ongoing fraud or abuse requires immediate protection of the public registry.

4.6 No fees

Membership is free of charge. No admission fee, annual contribution, licensing fee or any other charge shall ever be levied for membership. This provision may only be amended in accordance with Article 10 and, in the case of the zero-fee guarantee itself, only with the enhanced majority there specified.

Article 5 — Governance Bodies

5.1 General Assembly of Members

1. The General Assembly is the supreme body of the Alliance. Each Voting Member holds one vote; Cultural Entities and Technical Community Members hold the limited voting rights defined in Article 4.1.
2. The General Assembly shall hold one ordinary session each year, online or in person. Extraordinary sessions may be convened by the Steering Committee or by at least one-third of the Voting Members.
3. Quorum shall be one-third of the Voting Members. Decisions on ordinary matters shall be taken by simple majority of votes cast. Amendment of this Charter requires a two-thirds majority (Article 10), and dissolution a three-quarters majority (Article 11).
4. The General Assembly elects the Steering Committee, approves annual reports and financial summaries, adopts and revises professional and technical standards on the proposal of the working groups, and decides on incorporation of the Alliance.

5.2 Interim Steering Committee (founding phase)

1. During the founding phase, the Alliance is guided by an Interim Steering Committee composed of ICO, in the person of its transitional Chair, and such early Founding Members as are co-opted by consensus, plus up to two independent persons invited in a personal capacity for balance.
2. The interim body shall govern by consensus wherever possible; where consensus fails, decisions are taken by majority, and the ICO transitional Chair holds no veto.
3. The interim period ends upon the earlier of: (a) the admission of the tenth (10th) fully-fledged Voting Member, or (b) 31 December 2027. Within ninety (90) days thereafter, the Secretariat shall convene the first General Assembly for the election of the Permanent Steering Committee. Until that election is held, the interim arrangements continue.

5.3 Permanent Steering Committee

1. The permanent Steering Committee shall comprise seven (7) to eleven (11) persons, elected by the General Assembly in their personal capacity for staggered terms of two (2) years, renewable once. Approximately one-half of the seats shall be contested at each ordinary election.
2. Composition shall reflect the multi-stakeholder character of the Alliance, with at least forty per cent (40%) of seats held by nationals of Global South countries and at least forty per cent (40%) held by women. Media members shall hold a majority of seats.
3. The Steering Committee elects its own Chair, sets strategy between Assembly sessions, oversees the Secretariat, appoints the panels and working-group convenors, and may not amend this Charter.

5.4 Secretariat

1. ICO serves as Secretariat of the Alliance. The Secretariat provides administration, technical operation of the credential system and registry, member services, and legal hosting during the founding phase.
2. The Secretariat executes the standards set by the members; it holds no unilateral power to determine verification standards, to veto admissions or to revoke credentials otherwise than under the rules of Article 6.
3. The transitional Secretary is provided by ICO. The signing authority for founding-phase instruments is the ICO Executive Chairman, acting on behalf of the Interim Secretariat.

5.5 Technical Working Group and Ethics & Grievance Panel

1. A Technical Working Group, open to Technical Community Members and interested other members, maintains the technical protocol, security review and interoperability roadmap.
2. An Ethics & Grievance Panel, independent of the Secretariat and comprising at least three persons, handles ethics complaints, credential disputes and membership grievances under Article 9 and the operating rules.
3. Both bodies are established by the Interim Steering Committee as soon as practicable and confirmed by the General Assembly; until the Panel exists, its functions are discharged by the Interim Steering Committee with the safeguards of Article 4.5.

Article 6 — The ICOPC Credential System

6.1 The Alliance's core trust instrument is the International Certified Online-journalist Professional Credential (ICOPC): a "phygital" credential pairing an NFC-secure physical press card with a verifiable record on a decentralized ledger.

6.2 Authority over issuance standards belongs to the members collectively. Professional standards governing who may be issued a credential are adopted by the General Assembly, on the proposal of media Voting Members through the Technical Working Group. The Secretariat is responsible solely for technical execution and operation.

6.3 Credentials are issued to named journalists vouched for by a Voting Member, or in exceptional cases by the Secretariat under published criteria pending the admission of a sponsoring organization in the holder's country. Each credential shall show, publicly: holder name, role, issuing organization, region and current status; no other personal data shall be published.

6.4 Issuance. Applications, identity verification, numbering (in the format ICOPC-YYYY-XXXXXX for production records, with ICOPC-DEMO-XXXX reserved for clearly watermarked demonstration records), registry publication and card production shall follow the operating rules adopted under this Charter.

6.5 Public verification. Any person or machine shall be able to verify a credential's status without charge, registration or password, by tapping the card or querying the public registry.

6.6 Suspension and revocation. A credential shall be suspended or revoked where it is lost, stolen, misused, counterfeit-tainted, or where the holder is no longer vouched for by the issuing organization, or upon confirmed serious ethical breach. Suspension and revocation shall be immediate in the registry, publicly reflected, and subject to the review procedure below.

6.7 Review of disputes. A holder or issuing organization aggrieved by a suspension, revocation or refusal may seek review, first by the Secretariat on the facts, then by the Ethics & Grievance Panel, whose reasoned decision is final subject to confirmation by the Steering Committee. Where a member withdraws or is expelled, credentials it vouched for shall be preserved for a transition period and re-sponsored or revoked in an orderly manner so that innocent holders are not abruptly disenfranchised.

6.8 Demonstration records shall at all times be clearly marked as SAMPLE / DEMONSTRATION ONLY and shall never create the impression that a real journalist or organization is enrolled.

Article 7 — Intellectual Property and Marks

7.1 The name "Global Alliance for Media Authentication and Cooperation", the abbreviation "GAMAC", the Alliance's logos and other marks, and domain names, are held in trust by ICO during the founding phase, for the benefit of the Alliance and not for ICO's own account.

7.2 Upon incorporation of the Alliance, or upon a resolution of the General Assembly calling for transfer, ICO shall assign the marks and domains to the Alliance or to a trustee designated by the General Assembly, without consideration beyond reimbursement of documented costs.

7.3 Members may use the Alliance's marks in accordance with published mark-use rules, solely to indicate their membership and participation, and not to imply Alliance endorsement of any product, service or political position. Misuse of the marks is grounds for action under Article 4.5.

7.4 Technical specifications produced by the Alliance shall be made available under open terms; the Secretariat shall not acquire exclusive rights over member-contributed technology.

Article 8 — Finance

8.1 The Alliance levies no admission fees and no annual membership fees, and shall not operate as a sales channel.

8.2 Resources during the founding phase consist of: allocations and in-kind support provided by ICO; donations from foundations, institutions and individuals; and project grants, with preference for funding without conditionalities. No resource shall be accepted that compromises the independence principle of Article 3.5; the Secretariat may decline funds on that basis and shall report such decisions.

8.3 ICO bears the ordinary founding-phase costs of administration and technical operation. No member is personally liable for the Alliance's obligations.

8.4 The Secretariat shall publish an annual transparency report, covering sources of funds, categories of expenditure, the share devoted to Global South capacity building, and in-kind support, together with any audit findings.

8.5 Surpluses shall be applied solely to the Alliance's purposes; no distribution to members or individuals shall be made.

Article 9 — Conflicts of Interest and Ethics

9.1 Every person exercising governance functions — Steering Committee members, panelists, working-group convenors and Secretariat staff involved in decisions — shall declare interests that could impair impartiality, and shall withdraw from deliberations where a conflict exists. Declarations shall be recorded and available to members.

9.2 The Secretariat shall maintain a written ethical conduct standard covering, at minimum: independence from advertisers, governments and platforms; protection of sources; non-discrimination; anti-fraud; and responsible handling of personal data.

9.3 Any person may submit a complaint concerning a member, a credential decision or a governance actor. The Ethics & Grievance Panel shall handle complaints fairly, confidentially where appropriate, within published time limits, with reasons given to the parties. Retaliation against complainants is itself an ethical breach.

Article 10 — Amendments

10.1 This Charter may be amended by the General Assembly by a majority of two-thirds (2/3) of the votes cast, provided the proposed amendment has been circulated to all members in at least two of the Alliance's working languages at least thirty (30) days before the session.

10.2 The zero-fee guarantee in Article 4.6, the distributed-authority principle in Article 3.1, and the limited-voting arrangements may only be amended by a two-thirds majority in which a majority of Voting Members voting and a majority of the non-media categories voting each concur.

10.3 During the founding phase, necessary technical and conforming adjustments may be made by the Interim Steering Committee, published immediately and submitted to the next General Assembly for confirmation.

Article 11 — Dissolution

11.1 The Alliance may be dissolved by the General Assembly by a majority of three-quarters (3/4) of the votes cast.

11.2 Upon dissolution, after settlement of obligations, all remaining assets and marks held for the Alliance shall be transferred to one or more not-for-profit organizations with substantially similar public-interest purposes — preferably organizations advancing media authenticity, press freedom or information integrity in the Global South — as determined by the final General Assembly, or, failing that, by ICO as trustee. No assets shall inure to private benefit.

11.3 The public registry shall, if technically possible, be archived or transferred to a successor verifier so that verification of already-issued credentials is not interrupted without public notice.

Article 12 — Entry into Force and Languages

12.1 This Charter is adopted and published by the International Communication Organization, in its capacity as initiating organization and Interim Secretariat, in September 2026, and enters into force on the date of publication at gamacalliance.org. It governs the Alliance from the first admission of a Founding Member, who, by signing the Membership Commitment Letter, acknowledges and accepts this Charter.

12.2 This Charter exists in English and Chinese, both texts being equally authentic. Should any divergence arise between them, the English text shall prevail, because the Alliance operates principally through English-language public instruments hosted within the icoun.org system and engaged with an international, multi-jurisdiction membership; the Chinese text is provided as a full working translation.

12.3 This Charter is the supreme governing instrument of the Alliance. Operating rules adopted under it shall conform to it.

Adopted and published this September 2026.

International Communication Organization, as Interim Secretariat of GAMAC

Chen Xuegang ICO Executive Chairman (on behalf of the Interim Secretariat)