Webwallet for research use case

Europe is working towards a wallet-based identity ecosystem. The Architecture and Reference Framework (ARF) serves as a basis for the implementation of the proposal for the European Digital Identity Framework.

The current framework assumes all interactions will be handled via an app on a mobile phone. While this may suffice for many users, it will leave out groups that cannot or will not use such devices. In addition, it creates a dependency on the vendors of the devices and the software they run on. Finally, users may not be willing to store and aggregate work related data on a personal device. 

This activity will investigate if a browser based wallet may be created which can support (parts of) the ARF. To confirm usability for our community, the browser based wallet should be tested with the same scenarios as were previously tested in the incubator using mobile based wallets (Using Distributed Identity for managing researcher access).

• The "Using Distributed Identity for managing researcher access" activitiy lists a number of usecases, usage scenarios and architectures for using wallets in a research environment. We will evaluate these in the light of a webbased wallet and define a list of usecases en requirements we want to test during this activity.
• We will engage with stakeholders to identify requirements for a webbased wallet to be used in research
• We will investiugate to what extent the ARF requirements may or may not impede the use of a webbased wallet.
• A first version of a web wallets has been developed as part of the eDiplomas Wallet Ecosystem activity (https://open.gunet.gr/wallet-docs). We will evaluate the current state of this project and describe gaps.
• We will define a backlog of technical activities required to resolve the gaps identified
• We will create a development environement
• We will describe test scenarions, and set up a test environment
• We release at least one new version of the webwallet
• Optional: include the webwallet into the test framework developned as part of the trustframe for wallets activity

The following parties will use the results of this activity:

The following results were created and delivered:

• A webwallet use case was defined that reflected the well-understood requirements of researchers participating in virtual organizations. In this case the VO-related entitlements and other data were supposed to be transmitted in a wallet instead of some MMS/VO tool.
• The participants of the webwallet for research topic, including 2 TIM students have deployed the wwwallet ecosystem (a collaborative effort led by  GUnet, Sunet, and Yubico), created its own php-based issuer and made experiments. This was a technologically challenging task as the ecosystem itself had limited technological maturity. With some scaffolding a plausible proof-of-concept was achieved. See the demo recording for details: Incubator demos