In today’s fast-paced digital age where so much information is at our fingertips, the need for verified credentials has become more crucial than ever before. With the rise of online platforms and digital interactions, it has become increasingly hard to tell the difference between genuine expertise and false claims.
This is where verified credentials play a vital role in establishing trust and credibility. Whether it's for job applications, online transactions, or professional networking, having verified credentials gives individuals a competitive edge and peace of mind. Employers are more likely to consider candidates who can provide evidence of their qualifications and achievements, while consumers are more inclined to trust businesses that have been verified by reputable third-party sources.
With online scams and identity theft growing around the world, verified credentials can protect individuals and organizations from fraudsters.
In this article, we’ll review the benefits of verified credentials and how they can be managed with Dock’s Verifiable Credential platform.
What Is a Verified Credential?
A verified credential is a digital document that confirms specific details or qualifications about you. It's issued by a trusted organization, which means others can rely on its accuracy. It's a secure and reliable way to share your skills, qualifications, or identity details in the digital world. And they make it quick and easy for others (like potential employers) to trust that this information is both accurate and genuine.
Examples of Verified Credentials
With Dock’s Verifiable Credential platform, organizations can turn documents into fraud-proof credentials. Here are a few of many examples of documents that can be issued as Verifiable Credentials:
- Driver’s license
- Identity document
- Passport
- University degree
- Professional certifications
This trust factor is very important. Because they're verified by a trusted source, verifying organizations like employers or service providers are assured that these digital credentials are legitimate and haven't been tampered with.
Benefits of Verified Credentials for Individuals
Boosting Your Credibility
Use of Verified Credentials makes it easy for others to trust the experience, knowledge, and education of the Holders of these digital documents. Verified credentials are particularly important for freelancers, consultants, and entrepreneurs who rely on their reputation to attract clients and customers. By presenting their verified credentials, these individuals can differentiate themselves from competitors and gain a competitive edge in their respective industries.
Instant Verification
Ever had to wait weeks (or even months!) anxiously while a potential employer verifies your educational background or work experience? With verified digital credentials, that time is drastically cut down. Your credentials can be checked instantly, accelerating the whole process.
You Control Your Data
With verified credentials, you decide who gets to see your personal information and when. Rather than having your info stored in centralized databases across different organizations, you control your data right from your digital wallet. It's like having a personal, secure vault for your credentials.
Trustworthy Transactions
Imagine you're buying a second-hand car online. Wouldn't you feel better knowing the seller's identity and history have been verified? With verified credentials, this trust can be established, helping you make safer transactions.
Fight the fakes
In the internet age where fake identities and scams are all too common, verified credentials help ensure you're interacting with genuine people and companies, adding an extra layer of security in the digital world.
Benefits of Verified Credentials for Organizations
Instant Verification
Imagine being able to reduce credential verification from months or weeks to seconds! It's a speedy, efficient way to authenticate qualifications instantly.
Significantly Reduced Costs
Organizations spend a lot of money verifying credentials manually. Those phone calls to universities, professional licensing organizations, or training institutions are extremely time consuming. But with verified credentials, the process is automated, which can dramatically reduce these costs.
Trust-Building
When you can show your customers or partners that your organization's credentials have been verified by a reliable source, it helps to build and maintain trust that can really help stand apart from the competition.
Enhanced Security
Verified credentials can help tighten your organization's security by reducing the need for data sharing and storage.
Regulatory Compliance
Verified credentials can make it easier for organizations to ensure data compliance as individuals maintain control over their data, and it's shared only with their consent.
How Verified Credentials Are A Game-Changer in the Hiring Process
Verified credentials are revolutionizing hiring, turning it into a faster, more accurate, trust-building, and fair process.
Drastically Reduce Verification Times
You know how hiring can be like a game of detective with HR teams spending days verifying resumes, calling up references, and double-checking qualifications. It's a necessary process, but it can feel like trying to find a needle in a haystack.
First off, imagine shaving off that time spent on background checks. Instead of relying on the slow, traditional ways of verifying information, with verified credentials, the facts are available in an instant and from a verified source. It's like having a fast-forward button for hiring, speeding things up dramatically. This means HR teams can focus more on interviews and understanding a candidate's fit, rather than playing Sherlock Holmes with their qualifications.
Accuracy of Experience, Skills and Education
72% percent of people in a resumebuilder.com survey said they lied on their résumés. How are hiring staff supposed to know or verify what information is correct and not? It’s almost impossible with manual checks.
With verified credentials, that's no longer a concern. It's a trust-but-verify approach. Candidates share their digital credentials, which are validated by a trusted source, reducing the risk of errors. Verified credentials offer an immediate seal of authenticity that can establish trust between an employer and potential employee.
Fairer Hiring Process
This shift to verified credentials isn't just about efficiency and effectiveness, it's also about fairness. By using a system that verifies each candidate's qualifications in the same consistent, unbiased way, it promotes a fair and transparent hiring process.
Dock’s Technology Advancements in Verified Credentials
Dock is a pioneer in developing verifiable credential technology with our application of the Dock Wallet, blockchain, and decentralized identifiers (DIDs).
Dock’s Verified Credential Wallet
Our non-custodial verified credential digital wallet puts you in control, providing a secure, trustworthy, and convenient way to manage and share your digital credentials while maintaining your privacy.
Security
With the Dock Wallet, your credentials are stored securely and encrypted, and the wallet uses either a passkey or biometrics (FaceID) for secure access.
Trust
When you share a credential from your wallet, others can trust it's legit because it's a verified credential. It's like presenting a document with an unforgeable seal of approval.
Convenience
Need to prove you have a certain degree? Or show you've completed a specific course? No problem. Just share the credentials straight from your wallet, anytime, anywhere.
Privacy
With this wallet, you get to choose who sees your credentials and when. You can also only choose to reveal specific parts of your credential that’s necessary for the verifier instead of your entire credential. For example, you can prove that you live in an eligible city for an online contest without showing your full address and other personal details on your driver’s license credential.
Verification
Because your credentials are verified and signed by you, it eliminates the need for third-party verification processes. This can speed up things like job applications, since potential employers can quickly check your qualifications.
Benefits of a Non-Custodial Wallet
A non-custodial wallet is like having your own personal digital safe, where only you have the key and control over your digital assets.
In contrast, with a custodial wallet, the company or service provider holds your assets on your behalf. They take care of the security and management of your assets, just like a bank takes care of your money. However, this means that you need to trust them to keep your assets safe and handle them properly. Custodial wallets can be risky if there are bad actors because they have access and can take your digital assets.
Blockchain
You can think of blockchain like a digital ledger or a notebook that records transactions. But instead of this notebook being kept in one place, it's distributed across many different computers all over the world. So, every time a new transaction is made, this information gets added to the notebook, and everyone who has a copy gets updated.
This ledger is highly resistant to tampering because any change in information would need to be reflected on all the copies. You can’t change past posted blocks, but data can be added.
Users can have the option to store their digital identifiers (DIDs) on the blockchain. Instant credential verification comes from being able to compare the signature of the issuer and holder within the verifiable presentation. It’s important to note, for data security, Dock never stores Verifiable Credential information or personally identifiable information on the blockchain. Verified credentials are encrypted and kept on users’ local devices such as their phone.
Decentralized Identifiers (DIDs)
You can think of a Decentralized Identifier (DID) as a sort of digital address that uniquely identifies you (or a service or thing) on the internet. It's a type of ID that's unique, global, and doesn't need a central authority to issue or control it. An individual will likely have many identifiers. With DIDs, even if you change where your digital “home” is, moving from one online service to another, your DID remains the same.
In the context of digital identity, DIDs play a critical role. They give you control over your digital identity, allowing you to prove who you are in online transactions, much like a digital version of your passport or driver's license, but even more versatile.
A DID is made up of a string of letters and numbers like this:
DIDs Can Exist On and Off the Blockchain
With Dock, individuals and credential issuers can create multiple DIDs for different purposes.
Dock offers two types of DIDs that can be used by holders and issuers:
How Blockchain and Issuer DIDs Interact With Verified Credentials
Verified credentials are securely encrypted and stored on people’s digital devices like the Dock Wallet. The credentials contain the issuer’s DID and their associated data. Again, the issuer’s DID can be stored on the blockchain if they provide credentials with did:dock while the credential holder’s DID is usually not on chain.
When a verifier checks the authenticity of a credential, the system retrieves the issuer DID’s public key from the blockchain to check the signature. Think of the public key like a unique stamp or seal. If the credential has the correct stamp, it means it's genuine and hasn't been tampered with.
This following information is checked during the verification of the verifiable presentation:
- The correctness of the data model of the credential
- The credential’s authenticity by verifying the Issuer’s signature
- Checking to confirm that the credential has not been revoked
- The signature of the Holder
Conclusion
In today's digital age, where trust and credibility are paramount, verified credentials have become essential. Whether it's for job seekers, employers, or individuals looking to establish trust and credibility, verified credentials offer many benefits. They provide concrete evidence of qualifications and achievements, enhancing professional reputation and opening up new opportunities. Verified credentials also protect individuals and organizations from fraudsters and scams.
Dock’s Verifiable Platform technology, particularly blockchain and decentralized identifiers, enables individuals to safely manage their verified credentials and for organizations to efficiently issue and instantly authenticate verified credentials. The growing adoption of these credentials will help us create more fraud-free interactions with greater integrity.
About Dock
Dock’s Verifiable Credential platform makes any data fraud-proof and instantly verifiable. It comprises the Certs API, the Certs no-code web app, an ID wallet and a dedicated blockchain. Using Dock, organizations reduce data verification costs while increasing the operational efficiency of verifying and issuing digital credentials. Individuals can fully control their data to access products and services more conveniently in a privacy-preserving way. Dock has been a leader in decentralized digital identity technology since 2017 and trusted by organizations in diverse sectors, including healthcare, finance, and education.
Partner Use Cases
- SEVENmile issues fraud-proof verifiable certificates using Dock
- BurstIQ Makes Health Data Verifiable, Secure, and Portable With Dock
- Gravity eliminates Health & Safety certificate fraud with Dock
Learn More
- How to Prevent Certificate Fraud
- How to Prevent Supply Chain Fraud With Blockchain
- BurstIQ Use Cases That Leverage Verifiable Credentials
- Blockchain Food Traceability: Enhancing Transparency and Safety
- What Are Digital Credentials?
- Data Compliance
- Web3 Identity
- Blockchain Identity Management
- Selective Disclosure
