Verifiable Credentials Use Cases - Call to Action

The W3C Verifiable Credentials Working Group<https://www.w3.org/groups/wg/vc> is looking for new and revised use cases<https://w3c.github.io/vc-use-cases/>. These use cases will be used as input into the design of the data model. There are three categories of use cases: short, extant, and focal.

Use Case Categories
Short Use Cases

A short use case is one that is simple and relatable to all (e.g., a digital transcript from an educational institution). They are self-contained and are generally unrelated to other use cases except those in the same domain (e.g., within the education domain: digital transcript, taking a test, transferring schools, online classes).

Contributions should be high level only, consisting of:

  *   Title
  *   Short (one paragraph) description

There are currently 30 short use cases. Iterations and improvements are welcome, and the working group is open to some additions, but more than a handful of additions will require deletion of some existing use cases.

Extant Use Cases

An extant use case is one that is illustrative of market adoption, i.e., an example of the use of Verifiable Credentials in real-world applications.

Contributions should be high level only, consisting of:

  *   Title
  *   Very short (single sentence) description
  *   URL

This is a new section, open to all Verifiable Credentials, whether deployed in production or as proof of concept.

Focal Use Cases

A focal use case provides a deeper dive into a Verifiable Credentials application. It may be extant or aspirational.

Contributions should be highly detailed, consisting of:

  *   Title
  *   Background
  *   Distinction from known use cases
  *   Actors (Issuer, Subject, Holder, Verifier)
  *   Validation requirements, including relationships with or dependencies on other Verifiable Credentials
  *   Example artefacts (Verifiable Credentials, Verifiable Presentations)
  *   Trust hierarchy (liabilities)
  *   Threat model (risks and responses)

There are currently 3 focal use cases. Iterations and improvements are welcome and the working group is open to one or two additions.

Guidance

The group has already identified several areas where new use cases may help:

  *   Traceability
  *   Accessibility
  *   Evidence
  *   Referring to other Verifiable Credentials (relationships and dependencies)
  *   Federated identification, trusted issuers

Timeline

  1.  GitHub (in process)
     *   Switch to composition of separate files, one per use case or use case domain (done)
     *   Add templates to submit new use cases as issues (done)
  2.  Call to action (this email)
  3.  Contribution deadline
     *   June 2nd, 2023
  4.  Proposed special topic calls for use case review, to be confirmed by VCWG leads
     *   April 11th, 2023
     *   May 9th, 2023
     *   June 6th, 2023
  5.  Draft
     *   July 28th, 2023
  6.  TPAC
     *   September 11th-15th, 2023

Submission

New use cases are submitted as issues. Click here to get started:

https://github.com/w3c/vc-use-cases/issues/new/choose

Issues will be discussed in group calls. Once approved for inclusion, they will be added to the repository and PRs may be filed against them.

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