The Citizen Wallet

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The Covid 19 Crisis has accelerated the need for certain technologies to be brought into mainstream use. One of those technologies is verifiable credentials. Verifiable credentials are digitally signed certificates that can be verified simply and quickly both in person and over the internet. Examples of possible deployment include prioritising older or vulnerable people's use of online supermarket delivery slots or certifying medical tests results to allow people to work in specialist medical roles or make use of air travel. This would be operated on the basis of a digital certificate issued by one or more trusted authorities.W3C recently released standards for the format of these certificates to encourage an interoperating eco system of credentials issuers, holders and verifiers. The vision for this project is to implement a framework that allows this new standard to be used but also connects to existing identity technology so that its use can be quickly scaled.The aim will be to create an environment where credentials can be easily issued and checked using web and mobile technologies. It should be usable at both a local and global level. For example a local authority would be able to issue credentials which can be read by a local welfare service provider to assist prioritisation, while a national government may use it for travel permissions.The environment will include a permissioned distributed ledger of credentials that will facilitate the issuing, holding, asserting and verification of the credentials. The environment will maintain credentials in W3C format and in X.509 format to allow bridging to existing identity environments. The distributed ledger will not use costly proof-of-work algorithms typically associated with this technology, and therefore not have the associated negative environmental impact.The main area of focus will be to create a system that can be used to store and deploy verifiable credentials using the new W3C standard. This will be interoperable with other systems using the same standard and will be part of an ecosystem that will allow credentials such as medical test results, key worker status or verified vulnerability status to be widely used in both physical and online environments.