Unverified Rating Procedure

Foreword. This Assessment Protocol is new in the VRS 2026 edition. It is the procedure behind the Unverified tier — the tier at which Veyrum rates a robot model from public evidence alone, without the manufacturer’s participation — and it exists so that a manufacturer who receives a notice of intent, a purchaser who reads an Unverified rating, and a reviewer who audits one can all see the same seven steps, the same clocks and the same limits. The procedure is stated once, in Clause 4, exactly as ruled in the rating-determination design and restated normatively in VRS-GEN-011 §4.6–4.14; this Protocol adds the definitions, the roles, the record, what happens when a clock is missed, and the kinds of public source that may be counted (by pointer to VRS-GEN-012 Clause 11). It is also the content of the public procedure page: the page says what this document says, in plainer words, and nothing more. An Unverified rating is an opinion above the compliance floor, not a certification (VRS-GEN-003); the manufacturer can replace it at any time by engaging for a higher tier. As a protocol it is versioned vX.Y.Z (VRS-GEN-004 §5.4). Requirements use “shall”.

Introduction

Every rating scheme that publishes opinions about parties who did not ask for them faces the same objection: you rated us without talking to us. The credit-rating agencies answered it a century ago with unsolicited ratings that follow a published procedure — notice, an opportunity to engage, a draft shared before publication, a window to comment, a record of the whole exchange. The VRS adopts that answer. An Unverified rating is assessed only from evidence anyone can find, only after the manufacturer has been told and offered the higher tiers, and only after the manufacturer has seen the draft and had a week to respond. What the manufacturer cannot do is stop it: the rating publishes, at the Unverified tier, with its evidence basis, and the notice-and-comment timeline sits in the public registry beside it.

The tier is deliberately capped. Public evidence can establish what a manufacturer has published, what regulators and certifiers have recorded, and what independent testers have measured; it cannot establish what only the manufacturer’s own files or a witnessed session would show. Every criterion therefore carries an Unverified ceiling (VRS-GEN-005 §6.2), and the Intrinsic Rating at this tier cannot exceed the sum of those ceilings — 280 of the 400 points of the VRS 2026 edition — nor can any sector letter exceed A on the C–AAA scale of VRS-GEN-006 §4 (the backstop of VRS-GEN-006 §8.3: AA and AAA are reachable only at the Verified and Certified tiers). Where the public record is silent the criterion scores its null-result rung, not zero and not the top (VRS-GEN-005 §6.8). Those limits are what make the tier honest: a low Unverified rating says little is public, and a manufacturer who wants to say more engages.

1 Scope

This Protocol specifies the procedure by which Veyrum assesses, notifies, drafts, receives comment on and publishes a rating at the Unverified tier for any robot model in any sector: eligibility (Clause 4, step 1); the notice of intent and the engagement window (steps 2–3); the review from public evidence (step 4); the results notice and comment window (steps 5–6); publication and the registry record (step 7); the clocks and what happens when one is missed (Clause 5); the kinds of public source that may be counted (Clause 6, by pointer to VRS-GEN-012 Clause 11); the roles and the record (Clause 7); and the public procedure page (Clause 8).

It does not: define any criterion, ceiling, rung or letter (VRS-GEN-101 to VRS-GEN-107, the sector -201 protocols, VRS-GEN-005, VRS-GEN-006); define what counts as admissible public evidence beyond pointing to VRS-GEN-012 Clause 11; govern the Verified or Certified tiers (VRS-GEN-013, VRS-GEN-203 and the sector -110 protocols); or govern appeals, errata and withdrawal after publication (VRS-GEN-008, VRS-GEN-010, VRS-GEN-011).

2 Normative references

• VRS-GEN-001, Vocabulary and Terminology — tier, ceiling, rung, evidence bar, edition stamp, null result.
• VRS-GEN-003, Governance Charter and Independence — assurance tiers (§6.8); ratings as opinions above the compliance floor.
• VRS-GEN-005, Intrinsic Rating Methodology — Unverified ceilings (§6.2), company-wide fallback (§6.5), null results (§6.8), the 280-point Unverified maximum.
• VRS-GEN-006, Application Rating Scheme — applicability states and order (§5), the Unverified letter backstop (§8.3).
• VRS-GEN-008, Application of Ratings — validity, review, withdrawal after publication.
• VRS-GEN-009, Passport and Registry Schema — the status block: tier, edition, issued, publication_hold, notice_comment timeline.
• VRS-GEN-011, Public Comment and Errata — the notice-and-comment window (§4.6–4.14) this Protocol implements; methodology-defect comments (§6.4).
• VRS-GEN-012, Evidence Grades and Data Requirements — public evidence for Unverified ratings (Clause 11).

3 Terms and definitions

Terms defined in VRS-GEN-001 apply. In addition:

3.1 Unverified rating — a rating assessed by Veyrum from public evidence alone, without the manufacturer’s participation, at the Unverified tier of VRS-GEN-003 §6.8.

3.2 public availability date — the earliest date on which the rated model could be purchased or ordered by a customer in any market, as established from public evidence; the eligibility clock runs from it.

3.3 notice of intent — the written notice to the manufacturer that opens an Unverified assessment (Clause 4, step 2).

3.4 engagement window — the period, not less than 30 days from the notice of intent, within which the manufacturer may engage for a Verified or Certified assessment and so supersede the Unverified review.

3.5 engagement — the manufacturer’s written acceptance of a Verified or Certified assessment under the applicable terms; a request for information, a comment or an objection is not engagement.

3.6 review — Veyrum’s assembly and scoring of public evidence per criterion (Clause 4, step 4).

3.7 results notice — the written notice carrying the draft rating and its evidence basis to the manufacturer and opening the comment window (step 5).

3.8 comment window — the period, not less than 7 days from the results notice, within which the manufacturer’s comments are received (step 6).

3.9 publication hold — the registry state publication_hold: held that a draft rating carries from the results notice until release; a held rating is not public.

3.10 release — the change of the registry state to publication_hold: released, making the rating public with its tier, edition, date and timeline (step 7).

3.11 evidence basis — for each criterion, the public sources collected, the archived copy of each with its retrieval time, and the rung the evidence supports.

3.12 null result — a documented search of a public source that found nothing, recorded with its coverage (VRS-GEN-005 §6.8, VRS-GEN-012 §11.4).

3.13 supersession — the closure of an Unverified review because the manufacturer has engaged for a higher tier; the review’s record is retained, no Unverified rating issues.

4 The procedure

4.1 Every Unverified rating shall follow the seven steps below, in order, with the clocks of Clause 5. The steps are those ruled for the VRS 2026 edition; they are restated normatively in VRS-GEN-011 §4.7–4.13, and a conflict between this clause and VRS-GEN-011 shall be resolved by errata to whichever document departs from the ruling.

4.2 Step 1 — Eligibility check. A model shall be eligible for an Unverified assessment only when it has been publicly available for at least 6 months (3.2). The notice of intent may be sent at month 5 so that the review begins at month 6. Veyrum shall record the public availability date and its evidence in the review file before sending notice.

4.3 Step 2 — Notice of intent. Veyrum shall send the manufacturer a notice of intent, in writing, to the manufacturer’s published contact for the model or its published corporate contact, stating: that Veyrum will assess and rate the named model (with hardware revision where public) at the Unverified tier under the named VRS edition; that the Verified and Certified tiers are available on engagement, with the terms or a pointer to them; that an engagement window of at least 30 days applies from the date of the notice; and where this Protocol and the public procedure page can be read. The notice shall carry the date from which the engagement window runs.

4.4 Step 3 — Engagement window. For not less than 30 days from the notice of intent Veyrum shall accept the manufacturer’s engagement (3.5). Where the manufacturer engages for a Verified or Certified assessment within the window, the Unverified review is superseded (3.13): it closes, its file is retained, and no Unverified rating issues for that model and edition. Where the manufacturer does not engage, the review proceeds at the close of the window; the manufacturer may still engage at any later time, in which case any published Unverified rating is replaced on issue of the higher-tier rating (VRS-GEN-008).

4.5 Step 4 — Review. Veyrum shall assemble the public evidence for each criterion of VRS-GEN-101 to VRS-GEN-107 and of each applicable sector -201 protocol from the kinds of source permitted by VRS-GEN-012 Clause 11 (Clause 6); score each criterion against its rung ladder up to and not exceeding its Unverified ceiling (VRS-GEN-005 §6.2); record a null result where a mandatory search found nothing (VRS-GEN-005 §6.8); apply the company-wide fallback where a criterion provides one (VRS-GEN-005 §6.5); determine sector applicability in the order of VRS-GEN-006 §5.2 from the manufacturer’s marketed and declared use and the objective capability prerequisites, recording the rationale; and draft the Intrinsic Rating and the Application Rating letter for each applicable sector and class. An inapplicable sector shall be shown as not applicable, never as a poor letter (VRS-GEN-006 §5.1). No letter shall exceed A at this tier (VRS-GEN-006 §8.3).

4.6 Step 5 — Results notice. Veyrum shall send the manufacturer a results notice, in writing, carrying: the draft Intrinsic Rating with its edition stamp; each draft Application Rating with its tier and edition; the evidence basis (3.11) for every criterion, including every null result and its coverage; the applicability determination and rationale for every sector; the date from which the comment window runs; and how to comment. On sending the results notice, Veyrum shall create or update the registry record with publication_hold: held (VRS-GEN-009).

4.7 Step 6 — Comment window. For not less than 7 days from the results notice Veyrum shall receive the manufacturer’s comments. Every comment received shall be read and considered by the reviewer before release; consideration guarantees neither acceptance nor a change to the draft (VRS-GEN-011 §4.12). A comment that supplies public evidence not previously found shall be assessed as evidence under Clause 6 and may change a rung within the Unverified ceiling; a comment that supplies non-public evidence shall be answered with the offer of the Verified tier and shall not change the draft. A comment that alleges a methodology defect shall additionally be handled under VRS-GEN-011 §6.4. The disposition of every comment shall be recorded in the review file.

4.8 Step 7 — Publication. After the comment window closes and comments are disposed, Veyrum shall release the rating: the registry record’s publication_hold becomes released; the rating is published at tier Unverified with its VRS edition and issue date; and the notice-and-comment timeline — notice of intent, engagement-window close, results notice, comment-window close, release — shall be recorded, each with its date, in the registry status.notice_comment object (VRS-GEN-009) so that the process is resolvable from the public record. The published rating shall carry the statement that it was assessed from public evidence alone and that the manufacturer may engage for a higher tier.

4.9 No Unverified rating shall be issued until this Protocol and the public procedure page (Clause 8) are operational (VRS-GEN-011 §4.14).

5 Clocks and missed clocks

5.1 The eligibility clock (4.2) runs from the public availability date. The engagement window (4.4) runs from the date of the notice of intent. The comment window (4.7) runs from the date of the results notice. Each clock’s start date shall be stated in the notice that starts it.

5.2 Where a notice cannot be delivered — the manufacturer has no published contact, or the notice is returned undelivered — Veyrum shall attempt delivery by every published channel (corporate contact, registered office, product-support address) and shall record each attempt; the window runs from the first successful delivery or, where none succeeds within 30 days of the first attempt, from the date of publication of the notice on the public procedure page.

5.3 Where the manufacturer requests more time within a window, Veyrum may extend that window once by up to the window’s own length and shall record the extension and its ground; a window shall not be shortened.

5.4 Where Veyrum misses a clock of its own — publishes before a window has closed, or fails to send a notice — the rating shall be withdrawn under VRS-GEN-010 and the procedure restarted from the missed step; the withdrawal and restart shall be recorded in the registry.

5.5 A review shall be completed and released, superseded, or closed without issue within 180 days of the notice of intent; a review not completed in that period shall be closed and may be reopened only by a new notice of intent.

6 Public evidence that may be counted

6.1 An Unverified rating shall rely only on evidence from the kinds of public source listed in VRS-GEN-012 §11.1, admissible under VRS-GEN-012 §11.2–11.7. Veyrum maintains the register of specific sources within those kinds, their coverage and their collection cadence; the register is an operating document and not part of this Protocol.

6.2 For the reader of this Protocol, the kinds are, by kind:

1. the manufacturer’s own published technical documentation — datasheets and specifications, user and service manuals, safety-function tables, release notes, support-horizon pages, security and privacy documentation, warranty, service and licence terms;
2. declarations of conformity published by the manufacturer;
3. certificate registers of accredited laboratories, notified bodies and classification societies, and published class marks;
4. regulators’ clearance, approval and authorisation records;
5. regulators’ incident, recall and adverse-event databases;
6. vulnerability databases and the manufacturer’s published security advisories and disclosure policy;
7. independent editorial or laboratory tests that publish their method;
8. peer-reviewed measurements of the named model;
9. quality-system certificate registers;
10. court, insolvency, enforcement and securities filings, and regulated financial reporting of them;
11. secondary-market listings for the model;
12. published disclosures by named operators or integrators.

6.3 Press reports, forums, marketplace user reviews and unsourced aggregators are not evidence and shall not be counted; they may lead the reviewer to evidence (VRS-GEN-012 §11.2). Manufacturer guidance, white papers and marketing establish nothing about the rated product (VRS-GEN-012 §11.7).

6.4 Every item counted shall be archived by Veyrum at collection with its URL and retrieval time, and the archived copy shall be the evidence basis referred to in the results notice (VRS-GEN-012 §11.2). A certificate shall be counted only where it can be verified in the issuing body’s register (VRS-GEN-012 §11.3).

6.5 Public evidence never lifts a criterion above its Unverified ceiling; within the ceiling the rung is determined by what the evidence shows, and the kind of source neither adds to nor subtracts from the points (VRS-GEN-012 §11.5).

7 Roles, independence and the review file

7.1 A reviewer shall conduct each review and a second person shall check the evidence basis and the applicability determination before the results notice is sent; neither shall hold a financial interest in the manufacturer or a competitor (VRS-GEN-003 §6.2). The fee for an Unverified rating, where any, shall not depend on the outcome (VRS-GEN-003 §6.1); an Unverified rating is not paid for by the rated manufacturer.

7.2 Veyrum shall keep a review file for every Unverified assessment containing: the public availability date and its evidence; every notice sent, with delivery evidence; every engagement or comment received, with its disposition; the evidence basis for every criterion; the applicability rationale; the draft and released ratings; and every clock date. The file shall be retained for the life of the rating and not less than the retention period of VRS-GEN-009.

7.3 The manufacturer’s comments, and Veyrum’s dispositions of them, shall be available to the manufacturer on request; the evidence basis shall be available to any reader of the rating on request, save where a source’s licence forbids redistribution, in which case its citation and retrieval time shall be given.

7.4 A refusal by the manufacturer to receive notice, to engage or to comment shall have no effect on the procedure or on the rating; the refusal shall be recorded.

8 The public procedure page

8.1 Veyrum shall publish a public procedure page stating, in plain language and in the same order, the seven steps of Clause 4 with their clocks, the kinds of public source of Clause 6, the limits of the tier (the Unverified ceilings and the letter backstop), how a manufacturer engages for a higher tier, and how to comment. The page shall say what this Protocol says and nothing more; where they differ, this Protocol governs and the page shall be corrected.

8.2 The page shall be live before the first notice of intent is sent (4.9) and shall carry the version of this Protocol it implements.

9 Worked example (informative)

A manufacturer of a hypothetical warehouse mobile robot first offered it for order on 3 March 2026. On 4 August 2026 (month 5) Veyrum records that date from the manufacturer’s own launch release and an archived distributor listing, and sends a notice of intent by email to the product-support address and by post to the registered office, stating assessment at the Unverified tier under VRS 2026, the availability of Verified and Certified, and an engagement window to 3 September 2026. Delivery is confirmed the same day.

No engagement is received. On 4 September the review begins. The reviewer collects, from the twelve kinds: the datasheet, manual and safety-function table (kind 1); the declaration of conformity (kind 2); a notified-body certificate verified by number in the body’s register (kind 3); a search of the regulator’s recall database recorded as a null result with coverage (kind 5); two published advisories and a disclosure policy (kind 6); one editorial test publishing its method (kind 7); a quality-system certificate verified in the registrar’s register (kind 9); and the parent’s securities filings for the company-level criteria, parent scope confirmed (kind 10). Each item is archived with URL and retrieval time. Each criterion is scored to its rung within the Unverified ceiling; the field-record criteria score their null-result rungs; the company-wide fallback applies to two criteria. The Intrinsic Rating drafts at IR 96 (VRS 2026). Applicability is determined in the VRS-GEN-006 §5.2 order: Industrial applicable from the marketed use, class mobile; every other sector not applicable. The Industrial pool drafts at a letter of A (VRS 2026) — Unverified, which is the backstop.

On 15 September the results notice is sent with the draft and the full evidence basis, opening a comment window to 22 September; the registry record is created with publication_hold: held. On 19 September the manufacturer comments: two comments supply public evidence — a firmware release note the reviewer had not found, and a service-network page — and are assessed, raising one rung on one criterion; one comment supplies an internal test report and is answered with the offer of the Verified tier without changing the draft; one comment disputes a criterion’s ladder and is routed under VRS-GEN-011 §6.4. On 23 September the rating is released: IR 98 (VRS 2026), Industrial letter A (VRS 2026) — Unverified, edition VRS 2026, issued 23 September 2026, with the five timeline dates in status.notice_comment, and the statement that the rating was assessed from public evidence alone. The review closed 50 days after notice, within the 180-day limit. No number in this example is a requirement; the ratings are illustrative.

Bibliography

• IOSCO, Code of Conduct Fundamentals for Credit Rating Agencies, Final Report (March 2015) — unsolicited ratings, disclosure and notice practice.
• Regulation (EC) No 1060/2009 on credit rating agencies, as amended — Article 10(5) on unsolicited ratings and Annex I Section D on presentation.
• U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission, Nationally Recognized Statistical Rating Organizations, 17 CFR §240.17g — unsolicited-rating disclosure requirements.
• Euro NCAP, Assessment Protocol — Overall Rating, v10.0 (2024) — published procedure for rating vehicles the manufacturer did not submit.
• ISO/IEC 17020:2012, Conformity assessment — Requirements for the operation of various types of bodies performing inspection — impartiality and record requirements.
• ISO/IEC 17065:2012, Conformity assessment — Requirements for bodies certifying products, processes and services — notice, appeal and record practice.
• ISO 8000-8:2015, Data quality — Part 8: Information and data quality: Concepts and measuring — provenance of collected evidence.
• ISO 15489-1:2016, Information and documentation — Records management — Part 1: Concepts and principles — the review file.
• Internet Archive, Wayback Machine — Save Page Now (documentation, 2024) — archival of public evidence at collection.

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