What it’s worthwhile to know
- Android now natively helps OpenID requirements for digital credential presentation and issuance.
- Customers can securely retailer and ship cryptographically verifiable digital paperwork throughout totally different apps.
- This replace permits wider use of digital credentials for numerous functions, together with account restoration and identification verification on totally different platforms.
Google just lately expanded its Digital ID entry by means of its Pockets app for residents within the U.Okay. And to additional develop the interoperability throughout totally different apps that retailer digital identities, the search big is aiming to assist open requirements by way of numerous identification suppliers and companies by means of the Android working system.
Final week, by means of an Android Builders weblog put up, the corporate has introduced that, “Android, by way of Credential Supervisor’s DigitalCredential API, now natively helps OpenID4VP and OpenID4VCI for digital credential presentation and issuance respectively.”
Because the search big additional explains, the Digital Credentials are cryptographically verifiable paperwork. They’ll embody paperwork like driver’s licenses, passports, or nationwide IDs. And, by means of Android apps and with the assistance of the respective app builders, extra could be integrated and submitted digitally like schooling certifications, insurance coverage insurance policies, permits, for instance within the close to future.
At the moment, the supported digital paperwork could be saved in “credential holders” apps like Google Pockets and Samsung Pockets. Some apps like banking or airline apps would, nevertheless, generally require the digital doc for verification, which isn’t essentially saved within the respective banking app.
Since Android helps safe sharing between units by means of CTAP protocols. Customers will be capable to retailer a number of credentials throughout apps and select which one to select utilizing OpenID4VP requests from web sites or Android Credential Supervisor API.
The method entails verifier sending an OpenID4VP request to the Digital Credential API, prompting the consumer to pick a credential. The consumer right here solely chooses a credential, not a digital pockets app. Android then redirects the request to the digital pockets app holding the credential to finish the motion. The app can additional carry out further due diligence earlier than releasing the credential.
Per the latest Google Pockets announcement, quickly customers can use digital credentials to get well “Amazon accounts, entry on-line well being companies with CVS and MyChart by Epic, and confirm profiles or identification on platforms like Uber and Bumble.”
Subsequent to Google Pockets, Samsung Pockets and 1Password may even be capable to maintain folks’s digital credentials as digital wallets and assist OpenID requirements by means of Android’s Credential Supervisor API.