Glossary

Data	**Electronic data of any type. It could be simple data or composite data. **
Database	A software system that stores and manages data.
Schema	Machine readable definition of data.
Actor (Subject)	A person, entity, or a thing who/which has been identified.
Transaction/ Interaction Data	Data representing details of an interaction/transaction that was done among one or more actors within a system.
SoR (System of Record)	A software system that is the primary system to enable a specific set of transactions/interactions through a set of workflows and user interfaces. Identities of actors participating in these transactions/interactions maybe linked to a registry.
Registration	Act of registering/enrolling the actor into a system
Claim	A statement that is made by an actor which can be verified.
Attestation	An act of verifying and authorizing specific data in a digitally signed fashion by an authorized individual/entity (whose identities are typically linked to some other registries).
Discovery	**An act of finding specific entries in a registry through a search/find mechanism. **
Assertion	An act of verifying a claim.
Consent	Approval of an actor given to another person/system to access the data of that actor for purposes of transaction/interaction.
Credential	Digitally represented verifiable artifacts containing a qualification, achievement, milestone, fact, etc issued to an actor for them to be able to make claims.
Registry	An Electronic Registry is a system, acting as a single source of truth that houses a set of common attributes of the actor in a trustable (attested) and non-repudiable (audited) fashion, made available in the control of the actor enabling actors to authenticate themselves and make claims about them with their consent which can be electronically verified by 3rd party systems.
Holder	Someone who owns the credentials as a proof and is responsible for generating presentations from them. Examples include students, employees, citizens, customers, parents of a children etc.
Issuer	A legal entity responsible for asserting claims about the holder or the subject about a verifiable event by issuing a verifiable credential to a holder. Few examples of issuers include the government issuing national ID to the citizens, Universities issuing degrees to the students and employers issuing experience certificates to the employees.
Subject	An entity about which the verifiable claim is being made. For example: children, student, citizen etc.
Proof	A proof provides the information about the issuer of verifiable credentials,proving the authenticity of the issued credentials, such as issuer details, date of issue, time stamp, signature, etc
Verifier	An entity who is responsible for verifying an issued credential. Few examples include employers, event organizers, universities etc.
Revocation	The process of revoking or invalidating a verifiable credential
Credential Metadata	A credential metadata consists of credential identifier and information to describe the properties of the credentials, such as certificate ID. It is cryptographically signed by an issuer