Privacy & Security

Privacy guarantees, data handling, and what your integration can expect

Soverage Gateway is built around one principle: prove identity without storing identity. This page explains the privacy guarantees that apply to users and integrators.

Privacy-first by design

Traditional identity systems collect and store personal data in centralized databases. Soverage takes a fundamentally different approach: no personal data is retained at any point in the verification flow.

This is not a policy decision. It is an architectural constraint. The system is designed so that PII cannot be stored, even by the platform operator.

Data lifecycle

Stage	What happens	What is kept
Document upload	Image analyzed in memory	Cryptographic commitment (hash)
Email/phone verification	One-time code validated via third-party processors (e.g. Twilio)	Cryptographic commitment (hash)
Device attestation	WebAuthn challenge completed	Hashed credential ID
DID creation	Identifier anchored on-chain (own consensus topic)	DID document (public)
Credential issuance	VC signed and delivered to user	Nothing server-side
Token minting	Personhood Token created on-chain	Token ID (public)

In every case, the original data (document image, email address, phone number) is discarded after verification completes.

What is stored where

Layer	What is stored
On-chain	Wallet address, DID document, verification flag, attestation hashes, Personhood Token ID
Client-side	Wallet session, DID keys, Verifiable Credential, attestation records
Server-side	Nothing (no PII retained after verification)

No personally identifiable information is written to the ledger or any database. There is no centralized database of user identities.

Implications for integrators

When you verify a user’s Soverage credentials through any of the verification flows, you receive:

• A DID (public identifier)
• A personhood score
• Attestation types completed
• A cryptographic proof

You do not receive any personal data (name, date of birth, document number, email, phone). The credentials confirm that a real person was verified without revealing who they are.

This means your application can implement sybil resistance, access gating, and compliance checks without becoming a custodian of personal data.

Cryptographic commitments

Instead of storing personal data, Soverage generates one-way hashes (cryptographic commitments) that prove a verification occurred. These commitments are recorded on-chain and can be independently verified.

This enables selective disclosure: users can prove specific claims without exposing the underlying data.

Self-sovereign control

User credentials are cryptographically theirs. Soverage cannot:

• Revoke a user’s DID
• Modify their credentials
• Access their private keys
• Prevent them from using their issued proofs

The DID and VC are portable. They can be verified by any system that supports W3C Verifiable Credentials and DIDs, independent of Soverage infrastructure.