Selective Disclosure.
A cryptographic capability that lets the holder of a credential reveal only specific fields to a verifier — proving age over 21 without revealing date of birth, name, or address.
The data-minimization angle is the GDPR-favorable property. Traditional ID verification forces the verifier to receive the whole document — date of birth, address, identifying numbers — even when they only need to verify one fact. Selective disclosure inverts the default: by construction, the verifier sees only the specific facts the user authorized to share. The compliance posture is dramatically cleaner because the verifier never holds excess data to protect, audit, or breach.
Common questions
How does selective disclosure work technically?
Is SD-JWT VC the same as BBS+?
Why does selective disclosure matter for GDPR?
Related terms
In the guides
Decentralized Identity and Verifiable Credentials: What CIAM Teams Should Know
EUDI Wallet rolls out in 2026. US mDL adoption is uneven but real. DID and VC are no longer research projects. The CIAM-side impact, and when to start integrating.
Identity Verification and Proofing (IDV/KYC): A CIAM Guide for 2026
How to prove a real person matches a claimed identity at signup — document capture, liveness, authoritative-data checks. The 2026 stack, the deepfake escalation, and where CIAM ends.