by Dave Longley and Manu Sporny, Digital Bazaar
The Verifiable Claims Ecosystem envisions a variety of ways that credentials will be exchanged between Issuers, Holders, and Verifiers.
Protocols that use Verifiable Claims to exchange data could be designed such that they are compatible with existing SAML and OpenID Connect-based systems. We also expect Verifiable Claims to be carried over protocols such as HTTP, Bluetooth, and RFID.
Over the years, Digital Bazaar has proposed various mechanisms that could be used to carry Verifiable Claims over browser-based protocols. This paper focuses on a recent advance in this area.
Digital Bazaar has created a browser-based polyfill called the Credential Handler API that is designed to send and receive Verifiable Claims.
A polyfill is a browser fallback, made in JavaScript, that allows functionality that a developer expects to work in modern browsers to work in older browsers, e.g., support for new Javascript (ES6) features.
When incubating a technology intended for browsers, it is often useful to polyfill the technology and deploy it into limited usage to ensure that it works in the field. This data can later be used to convince browser manufacturers that there is a measured need for the technology to be built into the browser natively.
What follows is a video demonstrating the polyfill for Verifiable Claims that Digital Bazaar has created:
The Credential Handler source code is available on Github:
Credential Handler Github Repository Credential Handler Demo Websites Github Repository
The source code can be used on the demonstration websites here:
Credential Handler Demo Websites
We are seeking to collaborate with individuals at this Rebooting Web of Trust event to review the user interaction flow for the Credential Handler API. We are also looking for developers who think that this polyfill would be useful to their organization when deploying Verifiable Claims to their customers. Finally, we're looking for feedback from developers on the code examples to determine if they would like to see any changes or modifications to the polyfill.