Credential Trust

Authentication on Nuts heavily depends on trusted credential issuers: any attribute, relevant to the security model of the use case should be verifiable. E.g., if a party claims to be a care organization, it should be able to present a Verifiable Credential to prove it. The same applies to a user presenting their name or claiming to be a care professional.

Who should be the trusted issuer for a specific Verifiable Credential depends on the context. But generally, issuers are authoritative registries (e.g. Dutch CIBG) or even state-issued (PID of natural persons).

Credential types are defined in the credential catalog. It is the normative source for credential definitions.

In practice, there are the following credential issuers:

• Governing body issuing for a specific use case
  • In the KIK-v use case, governed by Zorginstituut Nederland, KIK-v Beheer issues to participating organizations:
    • A credential that identifies the party as participating organization, containing a Chamber of Commerce registration number.
    • Credentials that allow a participant to perform specific SPARQL queries at another participant.
• Use case implementors issuing with explicit trust
  • In the eOverdracht use case, implementing software vendors issue NutsOrganizationCredential for their clients. Software vendors explicitly trust each other.
• Use case participant issuing with delegated trust
  • In the eOverdracht use case, participating care organizations issue a NutsEmployeeCredential to their active user. It is trusted when the organization has a trusted NutsOrganizationCredential
  • In the Huisartsinzage, PZP, and Home monitoring use cases, parties self-issue the X509Credential, holding organization identity, using their CIBG UZI server certificate.
  • In the LSPxNuts use cases, CIBG UZI certificates are used as backing proof for the HealthcareProfessionalDelegationCredential, HealthcareProviderCredential and PatientEnrollmentCredential.