Ecosystem Actors

Holder and Subject

In Velocity Network, a Subject (or Data Subject) refers to the person the credential is about. A Holder is the person that holds the credentials on behalf of the Subject. In most cases, the Holder and Data Subject are one and the same, however, there are cases where this may be different (such as parents/legal guardians).

Issuer

An Issuer is an organization that creates and issues credentials to an identified Holder. There are a number of different types of Issuers on Velocity Network:

• Primary Source Career Credential Issuer: An organization that issues career and education credentials, such as employment, education degrees, licenses, certifications, courses, badges, and assessments.

• Primary Source ID Document Credential Issuer: A government body that issues ID document credentials that can be used to identify the person, such as driver's license, passport, and national ID cards.

Notary Issuer

A third-party Issuer who can collect and evaluate evidence to attest to the legitimacy of the credential. For example, a background check provider attesting to employment they have received evidence of (payslips and a reference check), or a KYC Identity Verification (IDV) provider attesting to the legitimacy of a scanned passport.

There are three types of Notary Issuers:

• Accredited Notary Career Issuer (e.g., background screeners)

• Accredited Notary Phone/Email Issuer (e.g., OTP verifiers )

• Accredited Notary ID Document Issuer (e.g., IDV)

Relying Party

A Relying Party is an organization that receives data from credentials from a Holder. On Velocity Network™, Relying Parties must describe the kind of data they need and the purpose. The act of checking that a credential is valid or not is called verification. Most Relying Parties will want to verify the credentials they receive. On Velocity Network™, verification must be prepaid and costs a fixed number of Velocity Credits.

Credential Agent Operator

Most Issuers and Relying Parties do not write their own software systems. Instead, they typically use a platform from a tech provider that serves as their system of record. These tech providers need to connect the system of record to a virtual device called a Credential Agent. Running this device makes them a Credential Agent Operator. With respect to legacy data privacy regulations such as GDPR, these tech providers are considered data processors. Running an agent ensures that there is no change in the compliance regime for these organizations. In other cases, a system-of-record tech provider won't be subject to such compliance concerns; they will be able to utilize Credential Agent Operators SAAS providers to simplify the operational challenge of joining the Network.

Node Operator

Node Operators are participants on the Network who hold copies of the underlying ledger. The ledger is a shared repository of metadata about credentials that have been issued on the Network. Node Operators are custodians of information and ensure that protocols for issuing and verification are followed. There are two kinds of nodes: Members and Validators. Validators are nodes with full-write permissions and can participate in consensus. Members are read-only nodes that can only forward-write operations to a Validator node.