Trusted Signing / Artifact Signing — Organization identity validation "Validation Fail" with no reason given

Question

I submitted a Public identity validation for a French sole proprietorship (EI / auto-entrepreneur) under Trusted Signing (Artifact Signing account, North Europe region). The identity proofing step via Microsoft Entra Verified ID / AU10TIX completed successfully (I received a success confirmation in the Authenticator app). However, the next morning the validation status changed to "Validation Fail", with no reason given in the portal or in the notification email.

I don't have a paid support plan, so I can't open a technical ticket. Could someone point me to:

1. Common causes for a Validation Fail after a successful AU10TIX identity proofing step, specifically for an EU sole proprietor (auto-entrepreneur) using a VAT number as the business identifier?
2. Whether I should retry with a different business identifier (e.g. SIREN instead of VAT for a French entity)?

Validation ID: 3c36ea6a-f827-4742-b07c-53bcff969739 (happy to share more details if needed).

Answer 1

Resolved. For anyone landing on this thread with the same silent failure: the issue was the Business Identifier field. I was using the French intra-community VAT number (format FR17XXXXXXXXX) for a sole proprietorship (auto-entrepreneur/EI) - validation kept failing with no reason given (Validation Fail, no detail in the portal or in the email). Resubmitting a new Organization identity validation with the SIREN (the official French business registration number, via the "Registered Business Number" option) instead of the VAT number - all other fields identical - got it to Completed within a few hours. For a French sole proprietor/EI, using the SIREN rather than the VAT number appears to be the right identifier choice.