What is self-sovereign digital identity?

SSI allows individuals to own, manage, and share their own data and credentials without relying on intermediaries. This includes academic degrees, certifications, work experience, and acquired skills, among other documents.

Unlike traditional models, where information is fragmented across multiple platforms, SSI offers a unified, secure, and verifiable approach, thanks to the decentralized technology behind it—blockchain—and the standards and regulations on which it rests (the Electronic Identification, Authentication and Trust Services Regulation (eIDAS2) to ensure interoperability, and Verifiable Credentials for documents).

The current challenge in employability

Currently, both candidates and companies face multiple obstacles:

• Resumes that are difficult to verify,
• slow selection processes,
• a lack of trust in digital credentials, and
• difficulty demonstrating real skills.

This creates inefficiencies in the labor market and limits opportunities, especially in international or digital environments.

SSI: A New Way to Demonstrate Professional Value

With self-sovereign identity, professionals can:

• share verifiable credentials instantly,
• objectively demonstrate skills,
• build a portable and interoperable digital reputation, and
• control who accesses their information.

For companies, this represents a significant improvement in the speed and reliability of their recruitment processes (30% of academic profiles on LinkedIn contain some inaccuracy, according to several studies).

The Opportunity of the European Digital Identity Wallet

The arrival of the European Digital Identity Wallet marks a turning point in Europe. This initiative will allow citizens and professionals to securely and consistently store and share official digital credentials within this wallet.

This opens the door to a more integrated European labor market, greater interoperability between educational institutions and companies, and new talent verification models.

Organizations that adapt quickly to this new paradigm will have a clear competitive advantage. The decision isn’t whether to do it or not, but when, since European citizens have the right to do so from December 24, 2026, and large institutions are obligated to accept it 12 months later.

Education, credentials, and employability: A new ecosystem

The combination of SSI, blockchain, and verifiable credentials is transforming the relationship between education and employment:

• Universities can issue verifiable digital degrees.
• Professionals accumulate micro-credentials throughout their careers.
• Companies access reliable and up-to-date information.

We are moving from a model based on static degrees to one focused on dynamic and verifiable skills.

Self-sovereign digital identity is not a future trend, but an emerging reality that will redefine employability in the coming years.

Adopting SSI-based solutions not only improves efficiency but also allows individuals and organizations to build relationships based on trust, transparency, and data control.

In this new scenario, those who lead the digital transformation of credentials will play a key role in the future of work.

La entrada The European Digital Identity Wallet, key to employability se publicó primero en SmartPortfolio.

Digital Identity: Security and Control

The eIDAS2 proposal, adopted in 2021 and scheduled to come into force in 2026, extends the framework of the original eIDAS (2014) with the aim of providing every citizen and institution with a secure and universal means to manage their digital identity within the European Union (EU). The EUDI wallet, which will be available to all EU citizens in 2026 and must be accepted in all member states, will allow citizens to store, manage and share digital credentials in a secure and decentralised manner, without intermediaries and ensuring full control of the data by the user.

Several EU member states are currently piloting the EUDI wallet in key sectors such as education, banking and healthcare, demonstrating the potential of this technology to transform the way we interact digitally.

Verifiable Credentials and blockchain

A key aspect of eIDAS2 is the implementation of Verifiable Credentials (VCs), a standard that allows users to prove information about their identity without exposing unnecessary sensitive data. They can include everything from academic degrees to certificates of residence or business licenses, allowing for agile and decentralized verification:

• Academic credentials and professional certifications
• National identity card or digital passport
• Driving license
• Banking and financial data

The use of blockchain in this ecosystem reinforces the immutability and security of credentials, guaranteeing the authenticity of information without the need for centralized intermediaries. In addition, it reduces the risk of fraud and facilitates interoperability between different public and private services.

Benefits for citizens and institutions

For institutions and companies, eIDAS2 and VCs mean more efficient authentication processes, reduced fraud and simplified regulatory compliance. For citizens, the adoption of the EUDI Wallet will ensure greater control over their digital identity and a more fluid experience in interacting with both public and private services.

The transition to eIDAS2 is a unique opportunity for institutions and companies to digitally transform their businesses to innovate in secure and trustworthy digital services. The adoption of blockchain and verifiable credentials not only meets the new regulatory requirements, but also lays the foundation for a safer and more efficient digital ecosystem in Europe and, by its adoption, in other countries.

La entrada European digital identity: Unprecedented opportunity for citizens and institutions se publicó primero en SmartPortfolio.

Governmental entities can issue claims about citizens and businesses easily in a Web3 consumable format, such as Verifiable Credentials, as João Rodrigues Frade, Head of Building Blocks sector in DIGIT, European Commission, highlighted at Brussels Blockchain Week, from 7 to 8 June.

European Blockchain Services Infrastructure

European Blockchain Services Infrastructure (EBSI) helps the public sector to issue Verifiable Credentials, which become ‘reputation tokens’. EBSI is unique by making data from authentic sources of the public sector available in Web3-ready format, providing more transparency, censorship resistancy and openess to new entrants and innovators.

EBSI and Web3 have a crucial role in transforming the issuance of governmental claims, and governments have a role to play in bringing trust into the nascent Web3 economy, benefiting the citizens of Europe… Read more.

SmartDegrees has adhered to this European initiative, incorporating the Verifiable Credentials standard in its clients since July 2020, to take full advantage in favor of the universities and the final users.

La entrada Revolutionising governmental claims using Web3 technology se publicó primero en SmartPortfolio.

The objective is to help public administrations accelerate the creation of trustworthy cross border digital services.

Components

Verifiable Credentials associate three concepts:

• Decentralized identifier (DID).
• Verifiable credentials lifecycle, which enables standardization and scalable implementation.
• Digital wallets, allowing user interactions exchanging digital credentials, where VC are supported on them.

The video explains the Verifiable Credentials, its infrastructure (European Blockchain Services Infrastructure, EBSI), and the vast opportunities that it currently provides, through a user’s journey (“Eva’s trip“).

SmartDegrees has adhered to this European initiative, incorporating the Verifiable Credentials standard in its clients since July 2020, and is participating in the Early Adopters Programme to ensure that SmartDegrees wallet takes full advantage of the value of this ecosystem in favor of the universities and the final users.

(Source: CEF Digital)

La entrada Verifiable Credentials explained se publicó primero en SmartPortfolio.

European digital credentials

Its document Joining forces towards European digital credentials describes the opportunities and advantages of the initiative and the following information:

• Its infrastructure, European Blockchain Services Infrastructure (EBSI), first EU-wide blockchain infrastructure, which began being operational in Q1 2020.
• Verifiable Credentials (VC) standard.
• Digital wallets, self-sovereign identities (SSI) and the European Self Sovereign Identity Framework (ESSIF) standard.
• User seamless experience, explaining in detail the process followed by a cross border university student, involving three countries, its public administrations and two universities (Eva Journey).
• An incubator, Early Adopters Programme, to facilitate the adherance of administrations, universities, providers and other stakeholders. The programme has set up the specifications EBSI compliance, in particular the required ones in the digital wallets and its APIs, to ensure interoperability.

Currently, as of 30 November 2021, the situation is:

• 29 countries are participating in the European Blockchain Partnership, that supports the initiative,
• 38 blockchain nodes in 21 countries,
• 18 universities participating in a multi-university pilot, in 15 countries.

SmartDegrees has adhered to this European initiative, incorporating the Verifiable Credentials standard in its clients since July 2020, and is participating in the Early Adopters Programme to ensure that SmartDegrees wallet takes full advantage of the value of this ecosystem in favor of the universities and the final users.

La entrada EU joins forces towards European digital credentials se publicó primero en SmartPortfolio.

Verifiable Credentials standard

It has just completed his white paper “Building the digital credential infrastructure for the future“, where it establishes the design specifications of the associated system architecture and offers a more powerful and convenient way to share, manage and verify credentials:

• It has a holistic approach and not biased to specific solutions or platforms, facilitating the convergence of other initiatives.
• His effort is focused on the “envelope” and the system that provides safe delivery and storage. The “envelope” contains information about who issued the credential and to whom it was issued. Both the identities and the integrity of their content can be verified to detect fraud or tampering.
• Recommends the Verifiable Credentials (VC) standard and its data model, performed by the European Commission, within the framework of its European Blockchain Services Infrastructure (EBSI) initiative, because it meets the requirements established by the consortium and offers the following properties:
  • Digital, tamper proof and machine-readable.
  • Learner is at the center of exchanges of their data; their consent is required to exchange.
  • Learner may cryptographically prove the credential is about them.
  • Verification does not require consulting the issuer.
  • Content of the credential can conform to a variety of schemas and vocabularies chosen by the issuer.
  • Robust consideration of privacy, security, accessibility, and internationalization recommendations, making it suitable for high-stakes credentials such as transcripts.

Digital Credentials Consortium does not develop commercial products and services, but works with technology companies and platforms to create an ecosystem of options to choose from, as well as with employers to integrate verification services into their contracting workflow.

La entrada Building the digital credential infrastructure for the future se publicó primero en SmartPortfolio.

Eva’s trip

The trip shows a Belgian girl who graduates in her country, studies a master’s degree in Spain and later undertakes in Italy. In her country of origin she obtains two documents, one from the national government that will certify his identity, while another from the regional administration validates his university degree. This information allows her to access postgraduate education in Spain, which in turn issues a new digital certificate that she can store in her EBSI wallet. With all that information, as standard verifiable credentials, Eva can undertake in Italy, accessing grants from Feder funds, thanks to the credentials she has collected.

The European Blockchain Services Infrastructure aims to offer cross-border digital public services throughout the European Union using blockchain technology. It is formed by a network of blockchain nodes distributed throughout Europe, taking advantage of an increasing number of applications focused on specific use cases, whose proof of concept will begin to be available from January 2020.

(Source: CEF Digital)

La entrada Verifiable Credentials in European Blockchain Services Infrastructure se publicó primero en SmartPortfolio.