What are the benefits of Verifiable Credentials?

Verifiable credentials offer several benefits over traditional forms of identity and credential verification:

1. Shareable: Verifiable credentials can be easily shared across different platforms and systems, making them highly interoperable. This means that they can be used across different organizations and contexts and can be integrated with other digital systems and services.

2. Privacy preserving: With verifiable credentials, individuals can share only the specific information needed for a particular transaction, rather than sharing their entire identity or personal information. This reduces the risk of identity theft and enhances privacy.

3. Improved security: Verifiable credentials are tamper-evident and cryptographically secure, making them much harder to forge or falsify. This reduces the risk of fraud and ensures that the information being verified is accurate.

4. Instantly Verifiable: Verifiable credentials can be easily verified by third parties, reducing the need for manual verification processes that are time-consuming and expensive. This can lead to increased efficiency and cost savings.

5. Greater control & data ownership: Individuals have greater control over their own data with verifiable credentials. They can choose which information to share, with whom, and for how long. This puts individuals in control of their own data and reduces the risk of data breaches or misuse.

6. Interoperability: Verifiable credentials are designed to be interoperable across different systems and platforms. This means that credentials issued by one organization can be easily verified by another, even if they use different technologies or standards. This increases the usefulness and adoption of verifiable credentials.