Verifiable Presentations (VPs)

A Verifiable Presentation (VP) is a collection from one or more Verifiable Credentials, whereas the authorship of the whole collection can be cryptographically verified. VPs are standardized as part of the W3C Verifiable Credentials Data Model.

Why do we need Verifiable Presentations?

Verifiable Presentations, make it possible to combine and tamper-evident share data of one or more Verifiable Credentials. The shared presentation of the data will be encoded in such a way that authorship of the data can be trusted after a process of cryptographic verification. In situations where only a subset of the original Verifiable Credential data is reveled, for example, to enhance user privacy, Zero-Knowledge Proofs can help us keep that data verifiable.

How Verifiable Presentations are composed?

Verifiable Presentations represent a composition of claims, which can come from one or multiple Verifiable Credentials, of which the authorship is verified. This gives the holder of credentials the chance of composing context specify presentations, which only contain the data which is relevant in that context. When presenting the composition to a verifier, it can easily be validated.

Taking a closer look at how they are built up. We will see four different layers:

1. Presentation Layer - Being the Verifiable Presentation itself with the required metadata

2. Credential Layer - Referenced by Layer 1 and pointing to one or more credentials

3. Credential Proof Layer - Holding the proofs of the credentials and the signatures from Layer

4. Presentation Proof Layer - Holding the proof of the Verifiable Presentation and its signatures

Example of a Verifiable Presentation in code

If you want to get a better understanding of the different attributes present, please visit our section about VCs.

{
  "@context": [
    "https://www.w3.org/2018/credentials/v1"
  ],
  "type": [
    "VerifiableCredential",
    "VerifiablePresentation"
  ],
  "verifiableCredential": [
    {
      "@context": [
        "https://www.w3.org/2018/credentials/v1",
        "https://essif.europa.eu/schemas/vc/2020/v1"
      ],
      "credentialSubject": {
        "id": "did:ebsi:00000004321",
        "naturalPerson": {
          "did": "did:example:00001111"
        }
      },
      "id": "did:ebsi-eth:00000001/credentials/1872",
      "issuanceDate": "2020-08-24T14:13:44Z",
      "issuer": "did:ebsi:000001234",
      "proof": {
        "created": "2020-08-24T14:13:44Z",
        "jws": "eyJhbGciOiJSUzI1NiIsImI2NCI6ZmFsc2UsImNyaXQiOlsiYjY0Il19.",
        "proofPurpose": "assertionMethod",
        "type": "EcdsaSecp256k1Signature2019",
        "verificationMethod": "did:ebsi-eth:000001234#key-1"
      },
      "type": [
        "VerifiableCredential",
        "VerifiableAuthorization"
      ]
    },
    {
      "@context": [
        "https://www.w3.org/2018/credentials/v1",
        "https://w3id.org/citizenship/v1"
      ],
      "credentialSubject": {
        "birthDate": "1958-08-17",
        "givenName": "JOHN",
        "id": "did:example:123",
        "type": [
          "PermanentResident",
          "Person"
        ]
      },
      "issuer": "did:example:456",
      "proof": {
        "created": "2020-04-22T10:37:22Z",
        "jws": "eyJjcml0IjpbImI2NCJdLCJiNjQiOmZhbHNlLCJhbGciOiJFZERTQSJ9..BhWew0x-txcroGjgdtK-yBCqoetg9DD9SgV4245TmXJi-PmqFzux6Cwaph0r-mbqzlE17yLebjfqbRT275U1AA",
        "proofPurpose": "assertionMethod",
        "type": "Ed25519Signature2018",
        "verificationMethod": "did:example:456#key-1"
      },
      "type": [
        "VerifiableCredential",
        "PermanentResidentCard"
      ]
    }
  ]
}

Our open source products enable you to act as a Holder (share VPs) and as a Verifier (request verify VPs).