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Secure, seamless, and privacy-preserving digital identity

Internet Identity is a decentralized federated service running end-to-end on the Internet Computer.

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Access dapps quickly and securely

Internet Identity is a self-sovereign single sign-on solution for dapps.

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Verifiable credentials

Share cryptographically-signed information about yourself and gain access to gated experiences. Internet Identity guarantees that sharing attributes is private and done selectively. Issuers cannot know which dapp is requesting the credential and you are in control of the sharing process.

Secure access to 100s of dapps

Access 100s of next generation fully on-chain dapps built end-to-end on the Internet Computer blockchain without needing to create usernames and passwords. Secure and seamless authentication and session management powered by passkeys and WebAuthn.

Browser-based & walletless

No crypto wallet to download. No lost passwords or seedphrases. Get setup in seconds and gain fast and easy access to dapps using only the browser in your phone or laptop. Your signing keys are permanently stored in secure hardware and controlled by your biometrics.

Add secure authentication to your dapps

Developers should focus on building dapps, not identity solutions.

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A complete dev platform

Easily gate access to experiences without having to collect and store sensitive personal information. For developers, the availability of SDKs, documentation, tooling, and open source code increases productivity when building credential sharing dapps.

Build fully on-chain dapps

Build the next generation of secure, tamperproof and fully-on chain web3 applications on the Internet Computer. Dynamic web3 experiences (SocialFi, GameFi) built with smart contracts require a new approach to secure authenticated sessions, which Internet Identity provides.

Avoid app store blocking

Internet Identity makes it possible to build great web3 applications that users access with just their browsers. Your dapp can securely hold and interact with tokens and smart contracts across chains (thanks to Chain Fusion) with no app store policies to worry about.

Existing user base

Plug into a user base of 2.5 million internet identities and 100,000 monthly active unique users.

Compliant with W3C standards

Benefit from an existing ecosystem of tooling and libraries that support the W3C verifiable credentials standards.

Built with WebAuthn

WebAuthn significantly increases user convenience while reducing the risk of phishing and credential theft. It enables passwordless authentication through biometric data or hardware keys.

Issue verifiable credentials privately and efficiently

Use Internet Identity's Issuer APIs and SDKs to build credential issuing dapps.

Become an Issuer
Expand your audience

Grow your audience in a platform that is trusted by 100,000 monthly active users and has registered 2.5 million internet identities.

A platform built for privacy

Issue reusable credentials to your users, without using global IDs. Avoid the privacy issues associated with issuing credentials to globally unique IDs (which is typical of offline wallet solutions).

Versatile

Internet Identity's verifiable credentials support a broad range of scenarios, including academic credentials, KYC verification, age verification and proof of employment.

Explore Internet Computer's innovative identity platform

Internet Identity contributors include world-leading identity scientists having published more than 100 papers on verifiable credentials & attribute sharing, privacy-enhancing authentication, and zero knowledge proofs.

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Self-sovereign identity stack

Users control their identities and data. The Internet Computer offers a faster, lower cost, and more programmable decentralized public key infrastructure (DPKI) than other blockchains. With Internet Identity's tooling, you can issue, share, and consume verifiable credentials.

Mobile passkeys

Internet Identity enables users to store private keys on the secure hardware of their trusted devices. To authorize secure interactions, users simply unlock their devices. Whether you are on your mobile phone or desktop, you can easily use your secure identity.

Privacy-first

For each user and every dapp, Internet Identity creates a different set of authentication keys. This way, a user cannot be tracked across dapps. When a user selectively discloses an attribute between dapps, II transforms the credential to maintain the user's privacy.

Authentication and session management

Internet Computer allows anyone to develop and deploy fully on-chain web applications. With only the browser, users can operate any dapp and perform transactions beyond the mere transfer of tokens. This design has the following implications:

  • Since IC is a permissionless blockchain, dapps cannot be trusted.
  • Dapps must make authenticated calls to their own canisters as well as shared infrastructure canisters, for instance the IC Ledger canister.

As a result, Internet Computer requires a digital identity layer that is self-sovereign and protects users from malicious dapps. This layer is Internet Identity, a trustless smart contract that provides:

  • Secure and private interactions. Internet Identity derives a new identity for each dapp instead of issuing a single global identity. This design protects users from malicious dapps and makes interactions harder to trace.
  • Cryptography-based session management. When a user connects to a dapp, it creates a new session public/private key pair, which Internet Identity certifies with a combination of WebAuthn and threshold signing.

Verifiable Credentials

Verifiable Credentials is an emerging W3C standard and a solution to the ever increasing problem of forged physical and digital identities. It is the technical term for a list of identity attributes that are cryptographically secured.

Internet Identity has a built-in verifiable credential (VC) protocol, which is unique because it is walletless and privacy-preserving. Users interact with issuers and relying parties under different identities using only a browser.

Internet Identity's VC platform has been designed to easily integrate with both dapps and web2 applications. For any web application requiring a verifiable credential to unlock part of its functionality, the VC protocol uses Internet Identity as a trusted intermediary and issues a temporary alias when requesting and sharing credentials, instead of the user's existing identity.

FAQ

What makes Internet Identity secure and easy to use?

Authentication is backed by a TPM chip on your device, which can safely store private keys and sign operations, instead of relying on passwords and seedphrases. Internet Identity builds on the success of WebAuthn to deliver a highly secure and user-friendly authentication system.

What makes Internet Identity privacy-preserving?

Internet Identity derives a new principle (address) for each dapp instead of using a single global principle. This design protects you from malicious dapps and makes financial transactions harder to trace. Internet Identity also extends its privacy-preserving design to verifiable credentials. The relying party forwards the credential request to the issuer using Internet Identity as the proxy. To guarantee privacy, Internet Identity creates a new principle alias, and using threshold signatures, signs two attestations. These attestations prove that the alias can be used instead of the different principles the user holds with the relying party and the issuer.

How does Internet Identity compare to other Web3 authentication tools?

On most blockchains, you need to authenticate every time you make a request. The Internet Computer enables you to temporarily and securely delegate authentication to the dapp after you connect. This is made possible by creating sessions every time you use an app and leverages chain key cryptography.

Blog:  Chain key cryptography