What is the issuer's job in SSI, and what is it responsible for?

The issuer is a trusted entity that creates and issues verifiable credentials, and it vouches that their content matches reality and can be verified.

A credential is only as good as the party that signed it. The issuer's role is therefore twofold:

1. Create and sign digital credentials that can contain personal data of the holder (name, date of birth), qualifications (a diploma, a driving category) or memberships (an employee badge, a club card).
2. Vouch for the truth of what it signs. Before issuing, it has to check the facts, just as a passport office checks your documents before printing a passport.

Typical issuers are states (identity documents), road traffic offices (driving licences), universities (diplomas) and employers (employment confirmations). The issuer's trustworthiness is not proven by the credential itself; verifiers have to know which issuers they accept, which is why trust registers and governance matter so much in an SSI ecosystem.

Go deeper:

• W3C VC Data Model 2.0: Roles — what the standard expects of issuers, holders and verifiers.