Energy loan applications through citizens’ identity wallet
How the city of Ghent used identity wallets and verifiable credentials (in an extensive POC and pilot) to enable citizens to apply for energy loans and simplify administrative processes.
About Howest and District09
Howest University of Applied Sciences is a creative, atypical, innovative and entrepreneurial university. Howest University of Applied Sciences has 8,500 students and 800 staff and is also a partner of the Association University of Ghent, which is the second largest in Flanders with nearly 70,000 students.
District09 is the unique ICT partner of the City of Ghent, which provides a stable, reliable and safe ICT environment, on which the City, its inhabitants, visitors, commuters, students and employees can always build. The core focus areas of District 09 are IT infrastructure, application development, digital innovation and e-inclusion.
The Challenge
The status-quo application process for energy loans is very cumbersome and time-consuming for citizens. One of the key reasons that makes the energy loan application process so complex, is the high number of actors involved in the process. In addition, citizens need to communicate with all of them individually (as there is no common trust framework or trusted and regulated data exchange networks between all of these actors). Gathering all necessary documents to prove that a citizen meets the loan requirements is inefficient for citizens and it is difficult for administrators to verify those documents and award the loans to those who meet the criteria. Hence, in order to simplify those processes, the digitization of documents as well as the empowering of citizens through identity wallets were evaluated.
The Solution
The context of this pilot takes place in the NSR Interreg project BLING (Blockchain in Government). Blockchain was being explored, and more specifically how it could help in administrative situations. Participants quickly investigated Self-Sovereign Identity on a deeper level. Concluding that research, it was established that the main benefit of Self-Sovereign Identity (SSI) was that “verifiers” of identity documents did not need to be in contact with their “issuers” (which was a main challenge). That aspect makes the whole process smoother. That vision fitted beautifully with District09, as they wanted to continue innovating in the SSI field and gather more experience with how Verifiable Credentials can improve data minimisation, privacy and user experience.
After considering various options, the City of Ghent and the Howest team opted for walt.id’s solutions to build a proof of concept and pilot “Citizen Energy Portal”. This decision was based on several factors such as:
Open source under permissive license
EBSI & eIDAS compliance
EU spirit
Reputation
Flexibility (of the team and the product)
Clear and detailed documentation
The solutions of walt.id ensure a high level of security and trust in the identity verification and credential management process, which is essential when dealing with data such as the ones involved in an energy loan application.
It is relevant to note that for this project, the VIDwallet (by Validated ID) was used as the mobile wallet demonstrating interoperability and openness of walt.id’s solutions based on open standards. This wallet allowed citizens to hold and share their verifiable credentials claimed during the process.
The Results
The project resulted in the creation of a proof of concept Citizen Energy Portal for the city of Ghent. The portal combined with the identity wallet enabled citizens to gather all their necessary documents in one place and share those documents with just a few clicks. On the administration side, it automated the document verification process and reduced the number of human errors possible.
The following illustrates the process that citizens went through to claim their energy loan step by step:
Step by step guide
Step 1: Get a wallet
Citizen downloads and sets up the identity wallet application (in that case the VIDwallet).
Step 2: Request a VerifiableID at BOSA
Citizens visit BOSA’s website (Federal Public Service Policy & Support) and request a digital identity document. This service provider for the federal government offers a gateway to the authentic data sources of the ministry of economy, finance and other relevant actors for this case.
The citizen identifies himself to the BOSA portal to claim his Verifiable ID credential
The citizen scans the QR code that appears on the SSI portal, with his wallet.
The following illustrations show the scanning process with the desktop view on the left of the image and the mobile wallet view on the right.
Step 3: Request your Verifiable Credentials at the Federal Portal
Citizens authenticate themselves with the Verifiable ID previously claimed from federal government services. This authentication allows citizens to claim all sorts of verifiable credentials.
The citizen can use the Verifiable ID previously claimed to authenticate himself through his wallet.
Step 4: Request your Confirmation Debt Mediation credential at the Public Center for Social Welfare
At Social Welfare you can authenticate yourself with your VerifiableID to obtain your OCMWConfirmationDebtMediation Verifiable Credential.
Step 5: Request your Energy Loan
Citizens scan a QR code with their wallet to present the required identity credentials to the Citizen Energy Portal and obtain an energy loan approval.
“Walt.id met all our requirements. For example, they offer holistic open source products with great documentation, support for multiple identity ecosystems like EBSI and have long-standing experience and expertise.”
“Walt.id's products helped us demonstrate the feasibility of an EBSI (European Blockchain Service Infrastructure) compliant architecture, where the conditions to get an energy loan can be verified in a faster, more reliable, more secure and more privacy friendly way. Minimizing the amount of data involved, it is quite a transformation from the conventional resource-consuming practices of collecting proof from the different parties involved. E-mailing, processing, evaluating and archiving documents is practically eliminated. Walt.id’s products gave our citizens and all actors involved in the process a glimpse of the future of citizen-centric public administration.”
Shane Deconinck
Research Coordinator
Howest University of Applied Sciences
Tim Van Achte
Digital Innovation Lead
District09
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About the organizations.
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Walt.id develops Self-Sovereign Identity (SSI) solutions for businesses and governments across industries.
Developers and organisations rely on our open source products as an easy and fast way to use Self-Sovereign Identity - including Europe’s new digital identity ecosystem based on the EU Blockchain and the EU SSI Framework (ESSIF).
To ensure client’s success, our industry-leading experts provide holistic services including from conception over the implementation of pilots and production system to enterprise support and managed cloud services.
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Howest University of Applied Sciences is an atypical, creative, innovative and enterprising institution. By exploring talents and passion, Howest coaches its students to become team-oriented, highly-skilled and directly employable professionals who are able to anticipate developments in our global society.
Howest integrates socially relevant and competence-oriented education, valorisation-oriented research and services into its portfolio. Consequently, Howest is a strong “knowledge partner” working in close collaboration with and for the regional and international work field. Howest University of Applied Sciences has 8,500 students and 800 staff and is also a partner of the Association University of Ghent, which is the second largest in Flanders with nearly 70,000 students.
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District09 is the ICT partner of the City of Ghent, which provides a stable, reliable and sage ICT environment, on which the City, its inhabitants, its visitors, its commuters, its students and its employees can always build.
Together with our colleagues from the City of Ghent and partner organizations, we are turning our city into an innovative and inclusive technology capital that:
Builds a stable, reliable and secure IT environment.
Uses both revolutionary and accessible technology and digitization to tackle urban challenges.
Collaborates with citizens, education and knowledge institutions, civil society and other government institutions, innovative start-ups and scale-ups.
