What Are Issuers, Holders, and Verifiers?

Digital identity systems work through a triangular relationship between three distinct roles: issuers, holders, and verifiers. Understanding how these roles interact is essential to understanding how verifiable digital credentials create trust without intermediaries.

What is the three-party model?

Every digital credential involves three participants working together:

Issuers are trusted organizations that create and sign credentials. A DMV issues a mobile driver's license. A university issues a digital diploma. An employer issues an employee badge. A healthcare provider issues proof of insurance. These organizations have the authority to make claims about individuals and the responsibility to verify those claims before issuing credentials. When an issuer creates a credential, they apply a digital signature using their private key, a cryptographic stamp that says "I authorize this."

Holders are individuals who receive and store credentials in digital wallets. A job seeker carries a verified diploma. A resident holds a mobile driver's license. A professional maintains their license credentials. Holders decide when and how to share their credentials, maintaining control over their personal information rather than leaving it scattered across institutional databases.

Verifiers are entities that verify the authenticity of credentials. Banks verify identity for account opening. Employers confirm qualifications. Airports validate travel documents. Retailers check age for restricted purchases. When a verifier receives a credential, they confirm the digital signature against the issuer's public key. If the signature is valid, the credential is accepted instantly and without requiring contact with the issuer.

Trust without intermediaries

What makes this model powerful is that issuers and verifiers don't need to know each other directly. Trust doesn't require a direct integration between the DMV and the bank. It comes from the credential itself.

Consider how this works in practice: A DMV signs a driver's license credential. You carry it in your wallet. When you present it to a bank, the bank simply checks the DMV's digital signature using the DMV's public key. The result is instant trust, eliminating the need for intermediaries, phone calls, or manual verification processes.

This decentralized approach differs fundamentally from traditional systems, where verification often required contacting the issuer, checking centralized databases, or relying on manual document inspection. With verifiable digital credentials, the cryptographic signature provides mathematical proof of authenticity that any verifier can check independently.

Privacy through holder control

The three-party model done right places the holder at the center of every transaction. Credentials flow from issuers to holders, and from holders to verifiers, never directly between issuers and verifiers without the holder's involvement.

This architecture supports selective disclosure. When you present a credential, you can choose which attributes to share. Proving you're over 21 at a bar doesn't require revealing your address or full birthdate. Confirming state residency for a library card doesn't mean exposing your exact street address. The holder controls the flow of information to each verifier.

The verifier gets what they need, nothing more. In privacy-preserving designs, the issuer does not learn when or where the credential is used, and the holder maintains autonomy over their personal data.

How do the roles interact?

In a typical interaction, the holder requests a credential from an issuer, who verifies the holder's eligibility and issues a cryptographically signed credential to the holder's wallet. Later, when the holder needs to prove something, they present the credential to a verifier. The verifier checks the issuer's signature to confirm authenticity, verifies that the credential hasn't been tampered with, and optionally checks revocation status. The entire process happens in seconds, with cryptographic assurance replacing manual checks.

This structure ensures scalability and trust across both public and private sectors. Because driver's licenses in the U.S. are used far beyond driving, for banking, healthcare, travel, and countless other purposes, verification methods must work reliably across many different scenarios. The three-party model provides that foundation.