GB2594701A

GB2594701A - Global pass validation

Info

Publication number: GB2594701A
Application number: GB2005082.9A
Authority: GB
Inventors: Gomez Gustavo; Claude Hernandez Jean
Original assignee: Bizagi Group Ltd
Current assignee: Bizagi Group Ltd
Priority date: 2020-04-06
Filing date: 2020-04-06
Publication date: 2021-11-10
Also published as: GB202005082D0

Abstract

A computer-implemented method of generating a fixed-length identification string for use at a distributed identity verification service associated with a root domain name and comprising a plurality of verification servers each associated with a hierarchy of subdomains having one or more subdomain levels up to a maximum number of subdomain levels, the method comprising: receiving a request for an identification number at a verification server of the distributed identity verification service; at the verification server, in response to the request: generating a unique identifier of a length selected in dependence on the number of subdomain levels associated with the verification server such that the smaller the number of subdomain levels the longer the unique identifier; forming an identification number by combining the unique identifier with: an identifier of the hierarchy of subdomains such that the root domain name and the hierarchy of subdomains represent a fully qualified domain name of the verification server; and if the number of subdomain levels of the hierarchy of subdomains is less than the maximum number of subdomain levels, an identifier of the number of subdomain levels; and responding to the request with the identification number.

Description

Global Pass Validation

BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION

This present disclosure relates to a computer-implemented method of generating a fixed-length identification string for use at a distributed identity verification service and a distributed identity verification service.

ID verification services may be used to verify identification documents and certificates issued by an authority, such as a government body or commercial organisation. For example, in some countries a driving licence number may be provided to a government validation service which returns the corresponding name and photo of the person associated with that driving licence. This enables the identity of a person to be verified against the information held by the issuing authority -e.g. police officers may use such a service to verify that a driving licence is not fraudulent and that the person using a driving licence is indeed the person to which that licence has been issued.

Centralised ID verification services are typically used to provide such verification services, in which a single central server or group of servers handle all of the queries. However, such centralised services can be difficult to scale and, as the size of the database and/or the number of users increase, expensive architecture is required to service the increased volume of requests. Furthermore, such an architecture provides a single point of failure: even if the servers themselves are provided in a redundant configuration, the service can still be subject to denial of service and other network-based attacks which prevent valid requests being handled by the servers.

When a verification services grows beyond the scope of a single jurisdiction, it can become increasingly difficult to ensure compliance with the different privacy regimes that operate in different countries and regions. For example, the European General Data Protection Regime (GDPR) places strict obligations on the operator of such a service which may be incompatible with the data protection laws in place in other countries, such as the US. Often such privacy laws are significant because the data being held at the verification service is sensitive personal information.

SUMMARY OF THE INVENTION

The invention is as claimed in the claims.

There may be provided computer program code for performing the method. There may be provided a non-transitory computer readable storage medium having stored thereon computer readable instructions that, when executed at a processor, cause the processor to perform the method.

BRIEF DESCRIPTION OF THE DRAWINGS

The present invention is described by way of example with reference to the accompanying drawings. In the drawings: Figure 1 is a schematic diagram of a distributed identity verification service.

Figure 2 is a schematic diagram of a verification server of the distributed identity verification service of Figure 1.

DETAILED DESCRIPTION OF THE INVENTION

The following description is presented by way of example to enable a person skilled in the art to make and use the invention. The present invention is not limited to the embodiments described herein and various modifications to the disclosed embodiments will be apparent to those skilled in the art.

This present disclosure relates to distributed identity verification services which comprise a plurality of different verification servers each accessible at a different address. The principles described herein are particularly applicable to global verification services which span multiple jurisdictions. Such an approach avoids the expensive of extremely large-scale centralised systems and is generally more easily scalable as the system grows in terms of number of users and the size of the database. Furthermore, by storing the verification data relating to the users or companies of a particular jurisdiction, the verification data can be held in a manner which respects the local privacy legislation.

An exemplary distributed identity verification service 100 is schematically shown in Figure 1. The service comprises a plurality of verification servers 101, 102, 103, 104 and 105, each of which is accessible over the internet (or another network) 106. In the figure, verification server 101 is in jurisdiction 108 (e.g. the UK), verification server 105 is in jurisdiction 112 (e.g. Germany), and verification servers 102, 103 and 104 are in jurisdiction 109 (e.g. the US). Two further layers of verification servers are provided in jurisdiction 109: verification server 103 is in sub-jurisdiction 110 (e.g. the state of California) and verification server 104 is in sub-jurisdiction 111 (e.g. the city of San Francisco).

Each verification server is associated with a different subdomain but, as part of the same distributed identity verification service, all of the verification servers share the same root level domain. For example, the root level domain may be example.com, with each verification server being at a subdomain which relates to the jurisdiction in which that server operates. For instance, in accordance with the examples given above: Server 101 may be at uk.example.com Server 102 may be at us.example.com Server 105 may be at de.example.com The servers located in sub-jurisdictions 110 and 111 may be provided at lower level subdomains according to the jurisdictional hierarchy or any other suitable arrangement. For instance, in accordance with the examples given above: Server 103 may be at ca.us.example.com Server 104 may be at stca.us.example.com Computer system 107 is one of many computer systems which are operable to submit verification requests to the verification servers shown in Figure 1. The computer system 107 may be located anywhere -for example, it could be located in any of the jurisdictions 108-112. In the figure, system 107 is shown outside all of the jurisdictions in which the servers are located.

Each of the verification servers is configured to service verification requests which include an identification number. This could be, for example, the number of an identity document (such as a passport or driving licence), an authentication certificate (such as a certificate digitally signed by an internet-based authentication authority), or an immunity certificate. An immunity certificate may be issued to a person who has been tested and shown to have antibodies to a disease (e.g. as may be caused by a virus, bacterium, fungus, etc) and/or has been vaccinated against such a disease.

A method of generating an identification number at a verification server in accordance with the principles herein will now be described. An identification number generated at a verification server includes data representing the subdomain at which that verification server is located. That data comprises the full subdomain hierarchy but does not include the root level domain which is known to the entities in the system For instance, in accordance with the examples given above: The subdomain of server 102 is "us". This is a first level subdomain.

The subdomain of server 103 is "ca.us". This is a second level subdomain.

The subdomain of server 104 is "sf.ca.us". This is a third level subdomain.

Only the subdomain part of a server address is required for another entity of the system to locate a verification server since the root level domain is known and the subdomain plus the root level domain yields the fully qualified domain name at which the sever may be addressed.

An identification number generated at a verification server in accordance with the principles herein is fixed in length. The length may be predefined for the entire distributed identity verification service. Using a fixed length identification number is generally convenient for authorities using the service (e.g. certificate and passport numbers are typically fixed in length), makes the number more straightforward for consumers to use, and enables the identification number to be efficiently stored (e.g. at a database) and communicated.

The identification number may further include one or more check digits.

The identification number comprises a unique identifier part which is a character string (e.g. an alphanumeric string) generated in response for a request for an identification number. The unique identifier represents that part of the identification number which uniquely identifies the respective document, certificate, etc. The unique identifier may be randomly generated but subject to the constraint that the unique identifier generated has not already been allocated. Various approaches are known in the art to generate such a string.

The representation of each level of the subdomain is a fixed length string. For example, in the present examples, each subdomain level is a two letter code identifying a country, state or city.

In some examples, the length of the subdomain representation may vary according to its level. Since the length of the subdomain representation is known, the standard character (e.g. the period) separating the levels of the subdomain may be omitted. This has the advantage of minimising the number of characters of the fixed length identification number consumed by the subdomain information. For instance, the subdomain representation of server 104 may be written as "sfcaus".

In some examples, the subdomain representation may be encoded using a reversible compression algorithm so as to further compress the information yet enable a computer system (e.g. 107) reading the identification number to recreate the subdomain representation.

The number of characters of the fixed length identification number available for use as a unique identifier is further increased by minimising the required length of subdomain representation which needs to be stored. For example, server 102 can be identified by simply "us", whereas server 104 requires "sfcaus" or an encoding representing that longer string. The approach described herein allows a longer unique identifier to be used where the subdomain is shorter. This is advantageous because servers at a higher subdomain level may serve a larger jurisdictional area than servers at lower subdomain levels and hence will typically store a greater number of records relating to a larger number of users. For example, server 104 may provide a service to verify firearms certificates issued to residents in the city of San Francisco, whereas server 102 may provide a service to verify immunity certificates for all US citizens. The present approach provides a larger number-space for the unique identifier, in this example, all US citizens versus just those citizens of San Francisco with a firearms licence.

The subdomain representation may be at a fixed position in the identification number. In order to identify where the characters of the identification number representing the subdomain end and the characters of the unique identifier begin, a character may be used to identify the number of levels of subdomains. Since the representation of each subdomain level is of fixed length, this enables a decoder to determine the set of characters of the identification number which represent the subdomain and those which represent the unique identifier. For example, a single digit at a fixed position in the identification number may be used to indicate the number of subdomain levels For server 102, the identification number could have the form: 1u5ABCDEFGH134 For server 103, the identification number could have the form: 2causABCDEFG34 For server 104, the identification number could have the form: 3sfcausABCDE34 In which the first digit indicates the number of subdomain levels -e.g. the number of two-character subdomain level representations to skip before the alphanumeric unique identifier (e.g. ABCDEFGH I for the server 102 example). In these examples, the last two digits "34" are check digits which can be used to validate the unique identifier. In other examples, the check characters may be of any length, may cover part or all of the identification number (excluding themselves), and may be one or more of numeric, letters, symbols or alphanumeric.

All of the identification numbers in the example above are 14 characters long but it will be appreciated that the number of possible alphanumeric unique identifiers available to server 102 is 3,656,158,440,062,980, whereas the number available to server 104 is only 2,176,782,336.

In some examples, the available identification number space may be further expanded by allowing both uppercase and lowercase letters.

In Figure 1, the computer system 107 is operable to submit verification requests to the verification servers. The computer system 107 determines which verification server to contact from the subdomain representation encoded into the identification number. Where a character is provided to identify the number of subdomain levels, that character may be used to identify which characters of the identification number represent the subdomain characters. Using the knowledge as to the fixed length of each of the subdomain levels, the complete subdomain can be recreated by inserting periods at the appropriate points between subdomain level representations. For instance, in the example above in relation to server 104, "sfcaus" becomes "sf.ca.us." and is prepended to the root domain "example.com" so as to form the fully qualified domain name "stca.us.example.com" at which the appropriate verification sever is located.

In this manner, wherever the computer system 107 is located around the world, the appropriate local verification server can be addressed so as to verify an identification number.

In one example, 107 may be a computer system used by an airline web booking service to verify immunity or vaccination certificate numbers (the identification numbers described herein) entered by a user booking a flight. The airline web booking service may verify the immunity or vaccination certificate numbers with the verification servers of that user's government who issued the certificate. This can allow an airline to verify that a person has the appropriate immunity and/or vaccinations prior to booking a flight.

In a second example, 107 may be a computer system used by a customs agent to verify immunity or vaccination certificate numbers (the identification numbers described herein) captured from a user's passport at the border of a country. The computer system may verify the immunity or vaccination certificate numbers with the verification servers of that user's government who issued the certificate. This can allow the customs agent to verify that a person has the appropriate immunity and/or vaccinations before granting that person access to the country.

Thus, the present approach enables the computer system to be automatically routed to the correct validation site without requiring the user to provide additional information. The present distributed approach is particularly useful for efficiently verifying large numbers of people -for example, enabling the entire population of the world to be issued with immunity and/or vaccination certificates which are valid globally and can be readily verified at the appropriate local verification servers (e.g. a server run by a citizen's respective government).

Figure 2 illustrates a validation server 200 as shown in Figure 1. In Figure 2, the validation server comprises a data store 201 (e.g. a database) which comprises the unique identifiers issued by the server, optionally along with other information useful for verification of the respective document, certificate, etc. The server 200 comprises a processor 202 having an identifier generator 203 configured to generate a unique identifier of a length selected in dependence on the number of subdomain levels associated with the verification server such that the smaller the number of subdomain levels the longer the unique identifier. The identifier generator may generate a random number limited to the set of numbers which have not yet been allocated by the server. The server 200 comprises an identification number synthesiser configured to form an identification number by combining the unique identifier with the identifier of the hierarchy of subdomains and, optionally, the number of subdomain levels of the hierarchy of subdomains. The server 200 comprises an output unit configured to return validation information to the requester -e.g. computer system 107 in Figure 1.

Each verification server is configured to service verification requests by using the identification number to look up a record stored at a database accessible to it. The verification server may then verify or enable the verification of that identification number (or the person/company using it) by returning information to the requester.

In some examples, a verification server at a higher level subdomain could handle queries relating to a lower level subdomain, with the data stored at the higher level subdomain being a superset of the data stored at the lower level domains -e.g. if server ca.us.example.com is unresponsive, the system could fall back to server us.example.com. In other examples, the data held at each verification sever in a hierarchy of subdomains may be independent such that a higher level verification server could not service queries directed to a lower level verification server.

Generally, any of the functions, methods, techniques or components described above can be implemented in software, firmware, hardware (e.g., fixed logic circuitry), or any combination thereof. The terms "module," "functionality," "component", "element", "unit", "block" and "logic" may be used herein to generally represent software, firmware, hardware, or any combination thereof. In the case of a software implementation, the module, functionality, component, element, unit, block or logic represents program code that performs the specified tasks when executed on a processor. The algorithms and methods described herein could be performed by one or more processors executing code that causes the processor(s) to perform the algorithms/methods. Examples of a computer-readable storage medium include a random-access memory (RAM), read-only memory (ROM), an optical disc, flash memory, hard disk memory, and other memory devices that may use magnetic, optical, and other techniques to store instructions or other data and that can be accessed by a machine.

The terms computer program code and computer readable instructions as used herein refer to any kind of executable code for processors, including code expressed in a machine language, an interpreted language or a scripting language. Executable code includes binary code, machine code, bytecode, and code expressed in a programming language code such as C, Java or OpenCL. Executable code may be, for example, any kind of software, firmware, script, module or library which, when suitably executed, processed, interpreted, compiled, executed at a virtual machine or other software environment, cause a processor of the computer system at which the executable code is supported to perform the tasks specified by the code.

A processor, computer, or computer system may be any kind of device, machine or dedicated circuit, or collection or portion thereof, with processing capability such that it can execute instructions. A processor may be any kind of general purpose or dedicated processor, such as a CPU, GPU, System-on-chip, state machine, media processor, an application-specific integrated circuit (ASIC), a programmable logic array, a field-programmable gate array (FPGA), or the like. A computer or computer system may comprise one or more processors.

The applicant hereby discloses in isolation each individual feature described herein and any combination of two or more such features, to the extent that such features or combinations are capable of being carried out based on the present specification as a whole in the light of the common general knowledge of a person skilled in the art, irrespective of whether such features or combinations of features solve any problems disclosed herein. In view of the foregoing description it will be evident to a person skilled in the art that various modifications may be made within the scope of the invention.

Claims

CLAIMS1. A computer-implemented method of generating a fixed-length identification string for use at a distributed identity verification service associated with a root domain name and comprising a plurality of verification servers each associated with a hierarchy of subdomains having one or more subdomain levels up to a maximum number of subdomain levels, the method comprising: receiving a request for an identification number at a verification server of the distributed identity verification service; at the verification server, in response to the request: generating a unique identifier of a length selected in dependence on the number of subdomain levels associated with the verification server such that the smaller the number of subdomain levels the longer the unique identifier; forming an identification number by combining the unique identifier with: an identifier of the hierarchy of subdomains such that the root domain name and the hierarchy of subdomains represent a fully qualified domain name of the verification server; and if the number of subdomain levels of the hierarchy of subdomains is less than the maximum number of subdomain levels, an identifier of the number of subdomain levels; and responding to the request with the identification number.
2. A method as claimed in claim 1, wherein the request is received from an authority issuing digital and/or physical certificates, the identification number being a unique number for the certificate.
3. A method as claimed in any preceding claim, wherein the certificate is an immunity certificate. 30
4. A method as claimed in any preceding claim, wherein the identification number is: a passport number; an identity card number; a driving licence number; a social security number; an immunity or vaccination certificate number; a registration number of a company, corporation, or other organisation; a tax number of a company, corporation, or other organisation; or a digital certificate number.
5. A method as claimed in any preceding claim, wherein the verification server is accessible over the internet at the fully qualified domain name.
6. A method as claimed in any preceding claim, wherein the identifier representing the number of subdomain levels is a single digit.
7. A method as claimed in any preceding claim, wherein, if the number of subdomain levels of the hierarchy of subdomains is equal to the maximum number of subdomain levels, the identification does not include an identifier of the number of subdomain levels.
8. A method as claimed in any preceding claim, wherein the identifier of the hierarchy of subdomains and the position of the identifier of the number of subdomain levels are at fixed positions in the identification number.
9. A method as claimed in any preceding claim, wherein the identifier of the hierarchy of subdomains comprises a fixed length string representing each subdomain.
10. A method as claimed in any preceding claim, wherein the unique identifier is an alphanumeric string.
11. A method as claimed in any preceding claim, wherein the identifier of the hierarchy of subdomains includes only letters.
12. A method as claimed in any preceding claim, wherein the verification server is further configured to calculate a fixed-length error detection string over at least the unique identifier and the forming an identification number further comprises combining the unique identifier with the fixed-length error detection string.
13. A method as claimed in any preceding claim, wherein the position of the fixed-length error detection string is at a fixed position in the identification number.
14. A method as claimed in any preceding claim, further comprising, at a computer system: subsequently, capturing the identification number from a digital or physical certificate associated with an entity; using the number of subdomain levels or its absence to extract the identifier of the hierarchy of subdomains; combining the identifier of the hierarchy of subdomains with the root domain name so as to form a fully qualified domain name of the verification server; and using the fully qualified domain name, submitting at least the unique identifier of the identification number to the verification server so as to verify that the identification number is associated with the entity.
15. A method as claimed in claim 14, wherein the computer system further provides other information identifying the entity to the verification server.
16. A method as claimed in claim 14 or 15, wherein the entity is a person or animal and the other information comprises one or more of the name of the entity; the date of birth of the entity; a photograph of the entity; a passport number; an identity card number; a driving licence number; and a social security number.
17. A method as claimed in any of claims 14-16, wherein the entity is a legal entity and the other information comprises one or more of: the name of the entity; a registration number of a company, corporation or other organisation; a tax number of a company, corporation or other organisation; and a date of incorporation of the entity.
18. A method as claimed in any of claims 14-17, wherein the capturing the identification number from the certificate comprises: a user of the computer system entering the identification number; and/or the computer system reading a bar code, a two-dimensional bar code, or a chip of the certificate; and/ or reading the identification number by optical character recognition.
19. A method as claimed in any preceding claim, wherein the responding to the request with the identification number further comprises providing further information stored at the verification server and associated with the identification number.
20. A method as claimed in any preceding claim, wherein the further information comprises one or more of: a name of a person or legal entity; a date of birth; a photograph; a passport number; an identity card number; a driving licence number; a social security number; a registration number of a company, corporation or other organisation-and a tax number of a company, corporation or other organisation.
21. A distributed identity verification service associated with a root domain name and comprising a plurality of verification servers each associated with a hierarchy of subdomains having one or more subdomain levels up to a maximum number of subdomain levels, each verification server comprising: an identifier generator configured to, in response to a request for an identification number, generate a unique identifier of a length selected in dependence on the number of subdomain levels associated with the verification server such that the smaller the number of subdomain levels the longer the unique identifier; an identification number synthesiser configured to form an identification number by combining the unique identifier with: an identifier of the hierarchy of subdomains such that the root domain name and the hierarchy of subdomains represent a fully qualified domain name of the verification server; and if the number of subdomain levels of the hierarchy of subdomains is less than the maximum number of subdomain levels, an identifier of the number of subdomain levels; and an output unit configured to respond to the request with the identification number.
22. A distributed identity verification service as claimed in claim 21, further comprising a computer system configured to: capture a first identification number from a digital or physical certificate associated with an entity; use a first number of subdomain levels or its absence in the first identification number to extract a first identifier of the hierarchy of subdomains in the first identification number; combine the first identifier of the hierarchy of subdomains with the root domain name so as to form a fully qualified domain name of one of the plurality of verification servers; and using the fully qualified domain name, submit at least the unique identifier of the identification number to that verification server so as to verify that the first identification number is associated with the entity.