Skip to content
Partisia Docs

How Verification Works

One of the key innovations of decentralized identity is that verification works without contacting the issuer. This means the issuer never knows when or where a credential is used — preserving the holder’s privacy.

The verification flow

Section titled “The verification flow”
  1. Verifier creates a request: The verifier defines what credentials and attributes it needs using a DCQL query
  2. Holder receives the request: The holder’s wallet shows which credentials match and what data will be shared
  3. Holder approves: The holder selects which credentials to present and approves the disclosure
  4. Wallet creates a presentation: The wallet generates a cryptographically signed verifiable presentation
  5. Verifier checks signatures: The verifier validates the presentation’s signatures against public keys from the registry
  6. Verifier checks credential status: The verifier confirms the credential hasn’t been revoked by querying the registry
  7. Result: The verifier receives the verified data and makes a trust decision

Why no issuer contact is needed

Section titled “Why no issuer contact is needed”

The issuer’s public key is stored in the registry — a decentralized, tamper-proof store. When the issuer creates a credential, they sign it with their private key. Anyone can verify that signature using the corresponding public key from the registry.

This is similar to how HTTPS certificates work: your browser verifies a website’s certificate using a trusted certificate authority’s public key, without contacting the authority each time.

Learn more

Section titled “Learn more”