What is decentralized identity?
Decentralized identity is the idea of allowing users to store and hold their own personal information locally on their mobile device rather than relying on an organization’s database or third party provider.
This allows users to have more privacy and control of their data, while reducing costs and liability for organizations who would typically need to store that data.
Other Frequently Asked Questions
Who is Indicio?
Indicio is an award-winning team creating technology that is the gold standard in decentralized digital identity, biometrics, and data verification.
Indicio Proven®, Indicio’s flagship product, provides a complete, out-of-the-box solution for creating Verifiable Credential solutions for faster, more secure IAM, Biometric authentication, and more.
What is Indicio Proven?
Indicio Proven is a complete, “off-the-shelf,” end-to-end system for decentralized Verifiable Credentials that can be quickly integrated with existing identity systems in a cost-effective way.
Proven is designed to provide a fast, simply way to use this powerful technology to your team, so you can focus on building your business.
What is the Indicio Network?
The Indicio Network often refers to the Indicio MainNet, but Indicio actually offers four different networks for the creation of decentralized identity solutions.
Indicio Test Net: The platform to get your proof-of-concept up and running. This network is also used to test the latest code before it can be deployed to the Indicio MainNet.
Indicio Demo Net: The stable platform to use for product showcases and demonstrations. Indicio provides support services for this network to ensure your demo runs smoothly.
The Indicio MainNet: The enterprise-grade network to run mission-critical verifiable credential products and services. Indicio also provides full professional support services for customers using this network.
The Indicio TempNet: This network is a private space to conduct any security or penn testing. We’ll spin up your very own space and clean up after you when you’re done.
What is written to the public ledger?
The following information — and only this information — is, typically, stored on the ledger:
DIDs for an Organization, Company, or Institution
A Decentralized Identifier (DID) is an identifier that is linked to public cryptographic keys and a service endpoint. These are used to verify credentials from a particular issuer; the endpoint allows you to communicate with that issuer.
Generally, public organization DIDs comprise Issuer DIDs, Verifier DIDs, and the DIDs of other well-known authorities.
Credential Schemas
A credential contains information and Schemas define the different fields containing that information. For example, if you look at a physical driver’s license, it will have sections for birth date, address, height, and weight. Each of these fields would be attributes within a Schema for a driver’s license verifiable credential.
TDLR: The Schema stores the definition for the attribute but not the specific values for the attribute.
Credential Definitions
These are specific to the use of the AnonCreds credential format with Hyperledger Indy. Credential Definitions link a cryptographic key to each of the attributes in a Credential Schema. This allows a holder of a credential to share information in privacy-preserving ways, such as through selective disclosure (only a single attribute is shared) or a predicate proof (an attribute value can be numerically assessed without the actual value being disclosed, such as >21 or <21 for purchasing items that have legal age requirements).
Revocation Registry Accumulators
This provides a way of signaling which credentials are valid by keeping track of which credentials have been revoked and which have not been revoked. It is called an accumulator because the information on non-revoked and revoked credentials is compiled into an aggregate value without revealing the underlying information. As a consequence, the accumulator does not directly reveal the revocation status of any individual credential. Instead, this aggregate value is used by the credential holder to prove that their credential has not been revoked. This calculation is called a “proof of non-revocation.”
Put simply, the revocation registry accumulator is a way of proving your credential is valid.
What’s not on the ledger
Personally Identifying Information (PII)
No PII or personal data of any kind is recorded on the ledger.
Credential Issuance
No information about the issuance of any individual credential is recorded on the ledger.
The Verifiable Credential
Verifiable credentials are not written to or stored on the ledger in any context.
One of the most powerful features of decentralized identity is that you can create an ecosystem of millions of people using millions of credentials with only three or four writes to the ledger: the credential type, the schema, the credential definition, the issuer DID, and the revocation registry
What is self-sovereign identity?
Self-sovereign identity (SSI) is the concept where individuals or individual entities have complete “sovereign” control over their digital information, and how it is used and shared.
This control means the “sovereign identity” does not have to rely on third parties to hold and store their personal data for access to products or services or for verification purposes.
What is DIDComm?
DIDComm, or DID Communication, is a protocol designed to enable secure and private communication between parties by using decentralized identifiers (DIDs).
Unlike traditional methods for trusted connections, DIDComm provides mutual authentication and trusted communication, addressing the gaps in current technologies such as phones or email. DIDComm leverages Verifiable Credentials to add a verification element to digital relationships.
Indicio Holdr+ uses DIDComm as the basis for the messaging capabilities.
Learn more at https://didcomm.org/
How does Indicio improve Know Your Customer (KYC) processes
Indicio allows financial institutions and other organizations that rely on KYC to store their completed KYC information inside tamper-proof Verifiable Credentials.
Once the information is stored inside a Verifiable Credential it can be re-used, or even shared across the organization or partner organizations to reduce the frequency that organizations need to complete this time consuming and expensive process.
What can Indicio do for my organization?
Indicio specializes in providing companies with the software and infrastructure needed to authenticate and exchange high-value information quickly and securely.
Indicio’s products enable customers all over the world to issue, hold, and verify data through encrypted digital credentials. These verifiable digital credentials allow companies to confirm data authenticity quickly without the need to check in with its source, and without the expense or risk of direct integrations.
What makes Indicio different from competitors such as Evernym, Sovrin, etc.?
Indicio offers fast, powerful, and flexible solutions for our customers.
Our Verifiable Credential solutions can be purchased out of the box, or customized with the help of our team to use a variety of different credential types. They can be built using a decentralized identity ledger or without a ledger. They can be hosted on premesis or in the cloud provider of your choosing.
Indicio’s solutions are currently in use across the globe and across industries, including travel, finance, IAM, education and more. And our team is commited not just to delivering a solution that works, but that drives your organization to success.
How is Indicio’s technology different from other identity access management (IAM) solutions?
Indicio’s solutions allow you to grant users access based on a Verifiable Credential, rather than a traditional username and password, multifactor authentication, or third party identity provider.
This Verifiable Credential can be stored on the user’s mobile device, and shared at will with the touch of a button. The verifing party can then use their verifying software to check that the credential has not been tampered with, and that it was issued by an authorized source (such as themselves or a government or partner organization they trust). Once the credential has been verified the user can be granted immediate access, no need for multifactor authentication or relying on a third party identity provider to check their database.
What is Indicio Holdr+?
Holdr+is Indicio’s source-based digital wallet for storing Verifiable Credentials and secure messaging.
Holdr+ supports a variety of credential types, including Hyperledger Aries-compatible AnonCreds, the most widely-used format for verifiable digital credentials. It also uses the DIDComm messaging protocol to provide private and secure communication channels.
What is a Verifiable Credential?
Verifiable Credentials are a way to package and share tamper-proof digital information so that you can always authenticate where it originally came from. What makes this technology powerful is that anyone with the right software can cryptographically verify the issuer of the credential, and that no changes to the data have occurred since the credential’s creation, enabling the information inside to be trusted and immediately acted on.
Does Indicio use Hyperledger Indy?
The Indicio Network was built using Hyperledger Indy, an open source project at the Hyperledger Foundation, which is hosted by the Linux Foundation.