Common Terms (Taxonomy)

Verifiable Credentials (VCs)

A digital verifiable credential consists of any attribute that can be attached to a person. It contains important information about the verifiable digital credential including the issuer, who it was issued to, and specific data attributes. Verifiable Digital Credential’s are cryptographically-secure to ensure the provenance of the credential.

Distributed Ledger Technology (DLT)

A decentralized database that is shared among computers in a DLT network that records information in a way that makes it nearly impossible to change, hack, or cheat the system (unless you control 51% of all computing power on the internet).

Decentralized Identifiers (DIDs)

A unique identifier sometimes stored on DLT made up of a string of letters and numbers that contains details like the public key and verification information. DIDs contain no personally identifiable information.

Service Provider

A service provider is an entity that needs to verify the identity of a user before providing access to its services or resources.

System of Record

A system of record (SoR) is a trusted source of information that can be used to verify the claims made by an individual's digital identity. The SoR can be any entity that is trusted to maintain accurate and reliable information about an individual such as a government agency (ex. Department of Motor Vehicles for a state driving license), a financial institution, or an educational institution.

Trust Frameworks

Trust frameworks provide a common language and set of expectations for entities in the decentralized identity ecosystem, such as issuers, verifiers, relying parties, and users. They define the processes for issuing, verifying, and using digital identities and credentials, as well as the technical requirements for interoperability and security.

Self-Issued OpenID Provider

SIOP is based on the OpenID Connect protocol, which is widely used for authentication and authorization in web applications. With SIOP, individuals can create and manage their own digital identities and use them to access a wide range of online services and resources.

Digital Wallets

Digital wallets are the storage mechanism for verifiable credentials. Digital wallets can be embedded into an application and proprietary to a service provider, or they can be open, and all forms of verifiable credentials can be stored.