IU-VecCert: A Scalable Credentials Issuance Protocol Using Non-interactive Vector Commitment Scheme

The issuance and verification of credentials are crucial for maintaining integrity in various professions, including education and job certifications. Conventionally, centralized-based certificates face challenges such as infrastructure maintenance, data integrity, availability breaches, and questionable privacy concerns. In addition, some universities have partially implemented many blockchain-based solutions using the Merkle tree; however, they also face scalability limitations as proof size typically grows more prominent while the number of credentials is increasing. This paper introduces the IU-VecCert system to address the constraints of the above techniques, using constant-sized compact and non-interactive proof backed by vector commitment and a robust cryptographic data structure. This efficient and scalable system ensures that holders can demonstrate their credential’s legitimacy without revealing sensitive information while removing the need for the issuer infrastructure to serve the verifiers’ request. This makes it suitable for large-scale deployments in educational institutions, professional certifying bodies, and other organizations needing reliable and efficient certificate administration systems. The study also thoroughly examines IU-VecCert’s features, proving its benefits over contemporary solutions and its ability to retain integrity under various scenarios while using constant-sized proof and non-interactive verification process.