Discover the Power of Digital Credentials:
Assurance, Efficiency, Privacy

Digital credential solutions establish trust between parties: individuals, authorities, businesses, systems, devices, and AI-agents.

Digital credentials enable them to automatically verify the authenticity of data and documents and confidently exchange them and work together more effectively.

How do Verifiable Credentials work

Verifiable Credentials allow individuals and organizations to share only the necessary information while maintaining control over their personal data.

1. The Holder — the person, organization, or subject — requests certain data that prove something about them, like f.i. a drivers license, address or permit, from some authority, like the DMV or local municipality.

2. The Issuer — the authority, authentic source, or other data-producer — issues this data as a Verifiable Credential and offers this to the Holder, who stores it in their personal credential wallet.

3. At a later time, another party, the Verifier — like an authority, company, or other data-processor — can request proof or certain data from the Holder. In our example f.i. that they have a permit to hold a street-fair.

4. The Holder shares the proof or data as a Verifiable Presentation with the requesting party, who can immediately verify that the data is authentic, valid and has not been tampered with.

5. The Verifier can query a Trust Registry to check the authenticity and authorization of the Issuer: are they indeed the party they claim to be and are they authorized to issue the data that was shared.

Some Basic Terms and Concepts:

• Credential
  A piece of information that shows someone’s qualification, achievement, or attribute. It can be anything from a driver’s license or diploma to a salary statement or event-ticket.
• Subject
  The entity that the information is about: an individual, organization, device, system, or even an AI-Agent.
• Verifiable Credential
  A Verifiable Credential is a cryptographically protected data object with claims about a subject, issued and signed by a single issuer. The signature enables an audit trail and puts responsibility for the statement on the signer.
• Verifiable Presentation
  Recipients can request information from a holder of that information through a so-called Presentation Request. Selected fields from different credentials can be combined into one package, the Verifiable Presentation.
  Recipients can now cryptographically verify integrity the shared data and issuer identity.
• Status & Revocation
  The issuer can mark a credential as no longer valid, temporarily (suspended) or permanently (revoked).
  Recipients check this status during verification in a privacy-preserving way that doesn’t reveal who holds the credential, just if it is valid or not.
• Trust Registry
  A trust registry (or federation trust chain) lets recipients look up and verify whether the signer is recognized and authorized for the type of credential they issued.
• Credential Wallet
  A Credential Wallet is an application that enable a user or organization to receive, manage, and share Digital Credentials. Typically a mobile app or a web application.
• Privacy Preserving
  Verifiable Credentials are privacy preserving. The holder of a verifiable credential has complete control over it and can decide whether to share it with others or not.
• Selective Disclosure
  Some Verifiable Credential formats support Selective Disclosure which enables the holder to share and prove specific qualifications or attributes without revealing any unnecessary personal information.

People have lots of credentials that they have to share regularly with other parties:

• Identities
• Drivers license
• Professional certifications and licenses
• College and university degrees
• Academic transcripts
• Employment records
• Employer’s declarations
• Permits and licenses
• Medical records and prescriptions
• Credit reports
• Insurance policies
• Property deeds
• Financial statements
• Travel and immigration documents
• Background checks
• Drug test results
• Security clearances and access rights
• Event tickets
• etc.