With a focused, achievable goal, you can quickly deploy your Verifiable Credential ecosystem and gain an edge over your competitors
By Helen Garneau
If you’re looking to transform costly, inefficient, or user-unfriendly authentication and data sharing systems, our motto at Indicio is: “Start today, start small, scale smart.” This means beginning with a focused, manageable use case to build understanding of the technology, achieve results, and let these results create momentum.
We’ve helped customers implement Verifiable Credentials to solve a myriad of business issues: interoperability between partners and governments when privacy is a concern or when direct integration is too complicated and expensive; inefficient, error-prone, and repetitive processes based on manual, paper-based form-filling verification, and simplifying, securing, and speeding up access to systems and software.
But, rather than aiming to solve every challenge at once, we encourage customers to start with a small deployment that fixes one problem. This approach builds understanding and trust, drives stakeholder buy-in, and sets the foundation for long-term success.
Verifiable Credentials are a new digital authentication method that uses cryptographic proofs to verify identity or attributes without exposing unnecessary personal information or requiring the verifier to check in with the original source of the information or a third-party identity provider.
Here’s how they work:
- Issuer: A trusted entity (e.g., a bank, government agency, or employer) issues a credential to a user (e.g., proof of identity, business license).
- Holder: The user stores this credential securely in a digital wallet on their mobile device.
- Verifier: When logging in or accessing a service, the user presents a cryptographically verifiable proof of the credential and, depending on the use case, information in the credential to the verifier. Importantly, only the necessary data is shared, and the verifier can confirm its authenticity without contacting the issuer.
This decentralized model for data ecosystems means that users hold their own data and that the data issued in a credential is completely under the user’s control. This decentralization eliminates the need to store personal data in a centralized database in order to cross check and verify it. It also removes the privacy concerns over how third-parties can use personal data.
Let’s look at the simplest decentralized identity ecosystem we can create, one where the issuer and verifier is the same entity — for example, an employer issuing an employee credential for seamless login to company systems and applications. This structure, often referred to as a closed ecosystem, provides a simple, controlled environment for implementing, testing, and understanding the solution.
Once a team experiences how easy it is to implement such a system, the path is much easier to adding outside verifiers (say a company’s benefits partners) or other issuers (say, government-issued credentials) to create new ecosystems for sharing verifiable data.
Starting in this way allows for iterative development and continuous improvement, ensuring smoother rollouts and minimizing risks.
Our CTO, Ken Ebert calls this stage of development, a three-legged stool. While decentralized identity often seems like a purely technological solution, success relies on making important choices to balance the needs of three critical elements:
Business: What problem are you trying to solve with decentralized identity and Verifiable Credentials? Who are the users, and how will they benefit? What funding model supports the initiative? We’ve seen the customers who are quick to answer these questions get the budget and speed to deployment the fastest.
Governance: Governance defines how users obtain the credentials, who uses them, who the other parties in the ecosystem are, as well as how the deployment adheres to emerging global data regulations. Ensuring compliance and clarity builds trust among stakeholders.
Technology: This involves the foundational tools: the software for issuing credentials, holding credentials (in a digital wallet) and verifying credentials; the ability to write to and retrieve cryptographic material; and decisions over protocols and standards.
Our team at Indicio is active and lead many different communities where technologies and standards are being developed. From OpenID to DIDComm, W3C and IETF, chances are if you are interested in a specific protocol, credential type, or specification– we’ve got you covered.
An example of how these three elements work together: A company call center could issue credentials to customers, enabling quicker authentication. If this reduces verification time from 30 seconds to 5, with data to prove efficiency and customer satisfaction, the team can now ask for further funding for adoption. Here, the technology solves a business problem, and the governance is rooted in the trusted relationship between the company and its customers.
As new applications and improvements emerge during an initial rollout, the temptation to scale quickly can be strong. However, the key to sustainable growth is incremental expansion. Using the call center example, this might mean gradually adding new verifiers, issuers, or credential holders to improve routine transactions while maintaining a stable and secure system.
Decentralized identity is transformative. A key factor in the success of any decentralized identity project is effective communication of this — both internally and externally. Teams must articulate the value proposition to users, addressing the pain points that decentralized identity alleviates. This requires a combination of education, documentation, and messaging that engages stakeholders at every level.
At Indicio, we help organizations take their first steps with decentralized identity and support their success as they grow into larger deployments. By providing enterprise-grade tools built on open-source technologies, a variety of hosting options, and customizable training programs, we provide businesses the flexibility to create a variety of scalable solutions to fit their needs.
Whether you’re just starting out in testing or ready to deploy, our expertise helps you confidently navigate the path to a successful decentralized identity ecosystem.
Reach out to Indicio to get started.
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