A Universal System for OpenID Connect Sign-ins with Verifiable Credentials and Cross-Device Flow

Abstract

Self-Sovereign Identity (SSI), as a new and promising identity management paradigm, needs mechanisms that can ease a gradual transition of existing services and developers towards it. Systems that bridge the gap between SSI and established identity and access management have been proposed but still lack adoption. We argue that they are all some combination of too complex, locked into specific ecosystems, have no source code available, or are not sufficiently documented. We propose a comparatively simple system that enables SSI-based sign-ins for services that support the widespread OpenID Connect or OAuth 2.0 protocols. Its handling of claims is highly configurable through a single policy and designed for cross-device authentication flows involving a smartphone identity wallet. For external interfaces, we solely rely on open standards, such as the recent OpenID for Verifiable Credentials standards. We provide our implementation as open-source software intended for prototyping and as a reference. Also, we contribute a detailed technical discussion of our particular sign-in flow. To prove its feasibility, we have successfully tested it with existing software and realistic hardware.