Government
What does it take for a public body to issue credentials a third party can verify?
Issuing is straightforward. Revocation is the engineering.
The answer
Three things the issuing system must do: prove the credential came from the agency without the verifier calling the agency, carry no more personal data than the check requires, and revoke in a way that actually propagates to everyone relying on it. Revocation is the hard one — issuing is a write, revoking is a distributed problem, and a credential system without a working revocation path is a system that cannot correct its own mistakes.
Data minimisation as an architectural constraint
A credential proving someone is over eighteen should not carry their date of birth; one proving professional registration should not carry their address. Deciding what the verifier genuinely needs, and designing the credential to carry only that, is the difference between a system that reduces data exposure and one that multiplies it across every party that ever checks.
What revocation has to reach
Every system that made a decision on the strength of the credential, and every verifier who may check it after circumstances change. Design the propagation path before the issuance path — the reverse order is how credential programmes end up unable to withdraw something they issued.
Talk to the practice
Tell us what you are trying to build and what has to be true for it to work.
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