Verifying party
The verifying party is the party that verifies agent evidence and decides which issuers and timestamp authorities it trusts.
If a company operates its own agents, it is principal and verifying party at once. If a counterparty verifies a third-party agent, it decides itself which keys and anchors it accepts. In the verification model, trust is always a decision of the verifying party, never a claim of the evidence.
Example
A bank accepts payment orders from agents. As the verifying party, it decides which issuers it trusts, provides their keys and checks every order before executing it.
How it differs
The issuer creates evidence; the verifying party checks it. A verifier is the point in the flow where checking happens. KYA is a public verifier, not an issuer.
In practice
- Record your trust decisions in writing: which issuers, which status lists, which timestamp anchors. This makes verification repeatable and traceable internally.
- Set a minimum level for each use case, such as KYA-A3 for payments, and consistently decline evidence below it.
- Store the certificate for every accepted action. In a dispute, it shows on which basis you decided.
Role in KYA
The verifying party provides keys, status lists and timestamp anchors under “Trust of the verifying party”. In the report, KYA states whether a key comes from the verifying party or is merely self-asserted.
Related check: Issuer (issuer_resolution). Is the key bound to the issuer – through a DID or because the verifying party trusts it?
Frequently asked questions
What is a verifying party?
The party that checks evidence and decides whether to accept the action, such as a merchant, a bank or an authority.
What does a verifying party need to decide?
Which issuers it trusts, which status lists it queries, which timestamp anchors it accepts and which level it requires at minimum.
Can KYA be the verifying party?
KYA is a tool for verifying parties. The decision which issuers to trust stays with each party.
Does a verifying party have to manage keys itself?
It has to decide which keys it trusts and obtain them from a trusted source. It needs no signing keys of its own for verification.
What does a verifying party do with an indeterminate result?
It decides according to its rules: decline, request missing evidence or escalate the action to a person. The certificate states what is missing.
Do I need my own software as a verifying party?
No. Verification in the browser is enough for individual cases. For many verifications, the same engine can be integrated as a package without dependencies into your own systems or pipelines, with identical results.