Consortium for Decentralized ID & Verifiable Credentials established

Mitsubishi UFJ Trust and Banking, NTT Data Corporation, ITOCHU Techno Solutions, TOPPAN Digital, Hakuhodo Keithley, Hitachi, Fujitsu, and Anderson Mori & Tomotsune have established the DID/VC Co-Creation Consortium (Decentralized Identifier/Verifiable Credential Co-Creation), abbreviated as DVCC.

DVCC will develop interoperability rules to promote social implementation and dissemination of DID and VC, and will work to contribute to society by solving social issues and co-create business using this technology.

In modern society where digital technology is pervasive, the value of data is increasing even more. As a result, security and privacy issues have arisen, such as “Are you communicating with the person you think you are communicating with?’’, “Is the information being exchanged reliable?’’ and “Is your information being used without permission?’’ .

A white paper on Trusted Web was published in March 2021 by the Trusted Web Promotion Council of the Cabinet Secretariat Digital Market Competition Headquarters. In addition, various organizations and companies are also widely considering the concept of self-sovereign identity (SSI).

DVCC aims to guarantee the confidentiality of individuals managing their own information, the security of tamper resistance and traceability, and the convenience of allowing individuals to carry and use once verified information, ensuring safe, secure, and convenient authentication and certification.

This consortium aims to solve the problems based on the above worldview, and will focus on DID/VC as one of the methods. DVCC aims to demonstrate business use cases in Japan and develop rules for interoperability, and through business co-creation using this technology, DVCC will promote the social spread of DID/VC and realize a safe and secure digital society.

The standardization of DID/VC as a technical specification is currently being promoted globally by W3C, IETF, OIDF, and others, and DVCC will also formulate an approach that aims to prioritize adaptation to the Japanese business scene.

This consortium will mainly engage in the following four activities:

• Business co-creation: DVCC will share use cases and jointly consider them, and also jointly promote demonstration experiments and projects.
• Establishment of rules for interoperability: In order to ensure a certain degree of interoperability among companies participating in the consortium, DVCC will mainly develop rules related to business.
• Common use of resources: From the perspective of efficiency, companies participating in this consortium will share systems and infrastructure as necessary. DVCC will also consider sharing information within the consortium. For example, to accurately determine valid VCs, it may be necessary to share a list of valid VCs within a consortium.
• Information collaboration with external parties such as the government and ministries: This consortium is a study group of volunteers and does not apply the rules it has studied to external parties. DVCC will share information and collaborate with the national government, ministries and agencies as necessary.

Starting in October 2023, the eight member companies will prioritize discussions at the rule development subcommittee. They will discuss high-priority, general-purpose considerations to ensure interoperability.
In parallel, DVCC will coordinate the participation of multiple operating companies and launch a business co-creation subcommittee. Based on the discussions at the Rules Development Subcommittee, DVCC will proceed with more specific discussions based on specific use cases.

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