Verify Blue Card status

Overview

This use case enables community organizations to confirm a Working With Children Check (Blue Card) quickly and reliably using Verifiable Credentials.

The verifier does not need to collect and store broad identity evidence or repeatedly contact different registries. It needs to know whether the holder has a valid clearance for the child-facing role being performed.

Why it matters

Charities, sporting clubs, schools, and childcare providers must verify that volunteers and staff are cleared to work with children. Today this is often manual, error-prone, and burdensome for volunteer-run organizations.

Verifiable Credentials create a cleaner model:

• the authorized agency remains responsible for issuing and maintaining clearance status
• the volunteer controls presentation through a wallet
• the organization verifies clearance at onboarding, roster assignment, or renewal
• status checks identify suspended, expired, or revoked credentials at the point of use

Ecosystem roles

• Issuer: The authorized state or territory agency that issues the Blue Card credential.
• Holder: The volunteer or staff member storing the credential in a wallet.
• Verifier: The charity or organization validating status at onboarding or renewal.
• Trust governance: The rules that define accepted issuers, credential status sources, renewal timing, and exception handling.

Trust decision

The verifier decision is narrow: can this person work with children for this organization right now?

That decision should distinguish between verified clearance, expired evidence, revoked clearance, unsupported issuer, and cases that require manual follow-up.

Privacy and assurance

The organization should request only the proof needed for child-safety clearance. It should not need to retain full source documents unless policy or regulation requires it.

Assurance depends on checking issuer trust, credential binding to the presenter, expiry, revocation, and any role-specific rules before the person is allowed into child-facing duties.

Implementation notes

• Define when clearance must be checked: onboarding, renewal, roster assignment, or each access event.
• Keep revocation and suspension status available to verifiers in near real time.
• Include fallback paths for volunteers without wallet access or credentials issued under older processes.
• Record the verification outcome and policy basis without over-collecting credential data.

Objective

Enable a charity to instantly check the status of a Blue Card holder.

Description

A volunteer presents a Blue Card credential; the verifier checks issuer trust and current status before approving child-facing work.

Actors

Charity or community organization; Blue Card holder; issuing authority; status registry.

Dependencies

Accepted issuer registry, Blue Card credential schema, wallet support, and current status endpoint.

Preconditions

The volunteer holds a Blue Card credential and is seeking work involving children.

Postconditions

The organization allows, denies, or escalates the work request based on verified clearance status.

flowchart LR
    ISS@{icon: "tabler:building-bank", label: "Issuing authority", pos: "b"} -->|Issues Blue Card VC| WAL@{icon: "tabler:wallet", label: "Wallet", pos: "b"}
    WAL -->|Presents credential| VER@{icon: "tabler:heart-handshake", label: "Charity / verifier", pos: "b"}
    VER -->|Status check| REG@{icon: "tabler:book", label: "Status registry", pos: "b"}
    REG -->|Valid / revoked| VER

sequenceDiagram
    participant Issuer as Issuing authority
    participant Holder as Blue Card holder
    participant Wallet
    participant Verifier as Charity / verifier
    participant Registry as Status registry

    Issuer-->>Wallet: Issue Blue Card VC
    Holder->>Wallet: Stores credential
    Holder->>Verifier: Present Blue Card VC
    Verifier->>Registry: Check status
    Registry-->>Verifier: Valid / revoked
    Verifier-->>Holder: Access granted / denied