Lexicon — the vocabulary of the record.

Status terms — the state of a rule

Used on the world and US panels and throughout the register. Exactly five states; every entry carries one.

In force green

The obligation applies now, confirmed against a primary or authoritative source, with the source and its date recorded. A rule either binds today or it doesn't; the record separates that fact from every forecast about it.

Deadline ahead amber

Enacted, confirmed, and carrying a stated future application date — recorded with that date. The interval between enactment and application is where preparation happens; the record keeps the date visible rather than the countdown dramatic.

Enacted · confirming dashed amber

Reported as passed and signed; Certian is still reading the enrolled text or awaiting a second source before recording details as confirmed. Between a headline and a statute sits a reading task. This term records that the task exists and is unfinished — a claim about Certian's work, not the law's validity.

Watchlist dashed gray

Reported activity the register is monitoring, not yet confirmed against primary sources. States what Certian is watching, not what the law is. Rumor and record are different substances; this term lets the register acknowledge the first without contaminating the second.

Not yet examined

The honest default for jurisdictions and instruments the register has not yet reviewed. Different from "no law exists" — it is a statement about Certian's reading queue, not anyone's legislature. Silence in a database is usually ambiguous. The record replaces ambiguous silence with a stated one.

Checking terms — what Certian asserts about a fact

Certian audits nothing and certifies nothing. These terms say precisely what was done instead.

Last confirmed

The date a recorded fact was most recently checked against its primary source. Carried per page, and progressively per fact. Undated accuracy decays into confident staleness. A record that shows its checking dates can be trusted and discounted correctly.

Machine-checked

A public fact confirmed by an automated nightly check against a public source — a certification registry entry, a published page, a live manifest — with the check date recorded. Asserts presence and consistency of public facts; asserts nothing about quality, safety, or compliance. Software can confirm that a public fact is present and unchanged; it cannot judge what the fact is worth. The term is scoped to what software can honestly do.

Registered

Present in Certian's record, with the listed party having demonstrated control of its own domain. A statement of presence, not of endorsement, quality, or compliance. Registries decay into billboards when listing implies approval. This term forecloses the implication at the vocabulary level.

Presence-only

The design rule that record entries assert whether a documented fact exists — not a score, grade, or adequacy opinion about it. The step from "this document exists" to "this document is good" is the step from record to judgment. The record does not take it.

Tamper-evident

Kept so that any alteration of the archived record would be detectable. Distinct from "immutable," a claim the register does not make. Honest engineering vocabulary: detection of change can be promised; impossibility of change cannot.

Correction notice

A date-stamped, displayed statement that a recorded fact changed or was recorded in error — including what it previously said. Corrections are recorded in the changelog and are kept there as a matter of current practice; the register does not correct silently. A record trusted to admit its errors in public is worth more than one that appears never to make any.

Structural terms — how the register is built

Keep the record, not the call

Certian's operating principle: the register documents date-stamped, sourced, public facts and leaves every judgment — legal, safety, coverage, purchasing — to qualified external parties. Neutrality is not a tone; it is a boundary about which sentences the register will write.

Sponsored listing

A professional's paid presence on a register page — flat fee, identical terms within category, not contingent on any outcome, labeled, not appearing inside editorial content or results reasoning. Terms at /sponsorship. Money and record can coexist only where the money is visible and the record is unpriced.

Vacancy

The designed empty state of a sponsor slot: a statement that Certian gives no advice, that the reader's next need is a named kind of professional, and that listings are open. Every honest disclaimer names a need someone qualified should fill; the register builds the shelf before the occupant.

Screener

A structured walkthrough of an instrument's questions that surfaces which obligations may warrant professional review, every branch linked to its source. A screening is not a determination — the same distinction professional practice draws between a screening and a diagnosis. The register needed a name for "helps you find the question" that would not be read as "answers it for you."

Certian Signatory Count

The register's count of organisations recorded as signatories to the EU Code of Practice on Transparency of AI-Generated Content, counted from the Commission's publications, as a date-stamped series. Kept at /signatories. An aggregate of recorded facts is still a fact. Named series make the record quotable without interpretation.

Certian

1. One who keeps the record — date-stamped, sourced — and leaves the conclusions to others. 2. (the) Certian: the register itself, and the corporation that keeps it. From the Latin certus — settled, fixed — with -ian, the suffix English gives its record-keepers: librarian, custodian, historian. The librarian doesn’t write the books; the historian doesn’t make the history; the certian doesn’t make the call. Certain is a claim, and the register makes none — one letter short of certain, by design. The vocabulary of the record begins with its own name. A register that promised certainty would be selling the conclusion; the name states the boundary instead — records date-stamped and sourced, judgment left where it belongs.

The lexicon records how Certian speaks. Disagreement with our usage is not a compliance finding.