Credential Overviews

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What is a Verifiable Credential (VC)?

A Verifiable Credential (VC) is a tamper-evident, cryptographically signed digital credential that enables the secure, privacy-preserving, and decentralized exchange of trustworthy information. VCs are standardized by the W3C and serve as digital equivalents of traditional credentials like passports, certificates, licenses, and records.

VCs are foundational to the United Nations Transparency Protocol (UNTP) and trust architecture, as they allow any thing (such as a product, facility, or asset) or event (such as a traceability step, certification, or transaction) to be issued as a verifiable credential. This includes, but is not limited to:

• Product passports
• Facility records
• Conformity credentials
• Traceability events

Key Features of Verifiable Credentials

• Tamper-Evident and Cryptographically Verifiable: Each VC is digitally signed by the issuer, ensuring that any alteration can be detected and that the issuer’s identity can be verified without reliance on a central authority.
• Privacy-Preserving: Holders control their credentials and can selectively disclose only the necessary information, supporting compliance and confidentiality.
• Interoperable and Decentralized: VCs are designed to be used across organizations, borders, and ecosystems, reducing reliance on proprietary or centralized systems.
• Revocable and Status-Aware: Credentials can be revoked or marked as expired, and their status can be checked in real time without exposing sensitive data.
• Portable and User-Controlled: Holders manage their VCs in digital wallets and decide when, where, and with whom to share them.

How VCs Work in Practice

1. Issuance: An authorized entity (issuer) creates and digitally signs a VC containing claims about a subject (person, product, facility, or event).
2. Holding: The subject (holder) stores the credential in a digital wallet.
3. Presentation: The holder presents the VC (or a subset of its claims) to a verifier, who checks the cryptographic proof and the issuer’s authority.
4. Verification: The verifier confirms the credential’s authenticity, integrity, and status—often without contacting the issuer directly.

Why VCs Matter for Supply Chains and UNTP

By issuing every product passport, facility record, conformity credential, and traceability event as a verifiable credential, organizations can:

• Build transparent, tamper-proof supply chains
• Enable automated, cross-border compliance
• Reduce fraud and greenwashing
• Empower stakeholders with data sovereignty and privacy

In summary: Every thing and event in the UNTP ecosystem—whether a product, facility, or process step—is issued as a verifiable credential. This ensures that all evidence and claims are digitally signed, tamper-evident, privacy-preserving, and instantly verifiable across global supply chains423.

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Credential Families

Credential	Category	Brief Description
DPP – Digital Product Passport	Core UNTP	A Digital Product Passport is a tamper-evident digital record that captures and links an asset’s identity, ownership, and compliance information throughout its lifecycle, with issuer attestations to enable transparent traceability and provenance.
DBP – Digital Battery Passport	Extended DPP	A Digital Battery Passport is a tamper-evident digital extension of the Product Passport that records battery chemistry, cycle life, and end-of-life data, with issuer attestations to enable transparent traceability and responsible lifecycle management.
DEGP – Digital Electronic Goods Passport	Extended DPP	A Digital Electronic Goods Passport is a tamper-evident digital extension of the Product Passport that captures electronics-specific attributes—chipsets, firmware versions, and EHS data—with issuer attestations to enable transparent traceability and compliance.
DFR – Digital Facility Record	Core UNTP	A Digital Facility Record is a tamper-evident digital profile of a facility—capturing location, operator details, and certifications—with issuer attestations to anchor facility-level claims and enable transparent auditability.
DEFR – Digital Electronic Facility Record	Extended UNTP	A Digital Electronic Facility Record is a tamper-evident digital extension of the Digital Facility Record that captures electronics manufacturing specifics—clean-room class, SMT line configurations, and EHS controls—with issuer attestations to enable transparent auditability and compliance.
DCC – Digital Conformity Credential (e.g. RMAP)	Core UNTP	A Digital Conformity Credential is a tamper-evident digital record that captures claims about product quality and facility compliance, with issuer attestations to enable transparent auditability across the supply chain.
DTE - Digital Traceability Event	Core UNTP	A Digital Traceability Event (DTE) is a tamper-evident digital record and core UNTP record type—adopted in RBTP—that captures how, where, and by whom materials or products move, transform, or are assembled throughout a value chain, with issuer attestations for transparent traceability.

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How the Pieces Fit

• Core credentials (DPP, DFR, DCC) implement the minimum viable data model defined by UNTP.
• Extension credentials (DEGP, DEFR, DBP) inherit the core schema, then add domain-specific fields so industries can comply with local regulations without breaking interoperability.
• All credentials share common building blocks—decentralized identifiers (DIDs), verifiable credentials (VCs), and JSON-LD contexts—so they can be mixed, matched, and verified by any UNTP-compliant wallet or service.

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Next Steps

1. Pick your credential → Open its overview for scope, data fields, and reference JSON.
2. Jump to the implementation guide (link at the bottom of each overview) for API payloads, sample code, and conformance tests.
3. Need help? Ping the #reference-implementation channel in Zulip Chat, or submit site feedback.