W3C Publishes First Public Working Draft of Recognized Entities v1.0: Advancing Trust in Verifiable Credentials Ecosystems
The Verifiable Credentials Working Group at the World Wide Web Consortium (W3C) has released the First Public Working Draft (FPWD) of Recognized Entities v1.0 . This specification introduces a standardized, cryptographically verifiable, and privacy-preserving data model for expressing "recognized entities" — such as issuers, verifiers, or other organizations and individuals — and the specific actions they are trusted to perform within VC ecosystems. Why This Matters: Solving the Trust Registry Problem in Decentralized Identity Verifiable Credentials (VCs), as defined in the VC Data Model v2.0, enable tamper-evident, privacy-focused digital credentials. However, a persistent challenge remains: How does a verifier know if the issuer of a credential is legitimate or recognized for that specific action? Historically, this has relied on: Out-of-band agreements Proprietary registries Centralized lists (e.g., X.509 CA lists or ETSI Trust Service Lists) These approaches cre...