Verified Claim

Full Title or Meme

A statement (or collection of data) by or about a Subject is a claim. If the claim is Corroborated, it is called a Validated or Verified Claim.

Context

• Any site can host data about a Subject and even offer to sell that data to others. Several problems are associated with that exchange:

1. The data may be false through negligence, incompetence or out-right fraud.
2. The site that contains the data may have no right to share that data with others.
3. A claim represents a data item without much context. Adding context to that data can create Verified Information which can have great value.

• A Verified Claim is one use of Verified Information limited to what is specific to Attributes about Subjects, either real-world or fully digital.

Solution

Claims typically go through a series of steps, for example:

1. A User will go to a Web Site hosting a Resource that the user wants to access.
2. The Web Site will send a scope to a User asking for Claims to authorize access.
3. The User Agent should know, a priori, where to send the Claims for verification.
4. The Verified Claims will be collected and forwarded to the Web Site.
5. The Web Site will evaluate the Verified Claims and determine whether to authorize access to the resource.
6. Optionally the Web Site will request additional claims to meet the needs to authorize access.

• In computer networking a variety of statements can be made by a user to acquire authorized access to a resource.
• The distinction as to Authentication, who a user is, versus Authorization, or what that user is permitted to do, is no longer helpful.
• NIST has recognized that there are multiple metrics for the Assurance of statements about a user in their third update to SP 800-63-B