Data Wallet Release Creates Core Capabilities for Universal Wallet Infrastructure

Today we announce the general availability of Inrupt’s Data Wallet.  

To support Solid’s adoption and Inrupt’s mission to power critical deployments and new applications around the world, Inrupt’s Data Wallet infrastructure includes a Data Wallet API as well as an open source React Native white-label Data Wallet reference implementation. 

Available today, Inrupt’s Data Wallet is essential for organizations launching wallets, enhancing existing applications with wallet capabilities to accommodate new use cases, and engaging their developer communities to create innovative solutions that drive higher engagement from one digital activity to another.

Inrupt’s wallet depends upon the Enterprise Solid Server (ESS) as a foundational infrastructure. ESS supports the provision of a wide range of solutions, not just wallets, that allow an organization to rethink how it engages with its consumers. ESS provides the interoperable foundation for data sharing that can power new solutions that span industries. When combined with a wallet, Inrupt’s solution sets a new standard for user-centric data management and governance and creates a new channel of communication direct to the consumer. 

Inrupt’s Data Wallet announcement serves as the catalyst for a universal data wallet infrastructure for any organization or developer to build and use, with any platform, for any application or service. 

Request a demo or contact our team today to learn more.

Big Trends: Why a Data Wallet now?

Growing Use

Across sectors, use cases, and geographies, the popularity and usage of digital wallets continues to grow year-over-year. 17% of global in-person purchases were made using mobile wallets and there was a 29% year-over-year growth in the use of Big Tech wallets — Apple Pay, Google Pay and Samsung Pay.

Over half of consumers are interested in using data wallets for features beyond digital payments. A study from PYMNTS found that many consumers regularly use mobile wallets to store credentials, such as ID and insurance cards, travel passes and event tickets.

It’s clear that digital wallets are quickly becoming the primary interface of our digital activities, from payments to storage and across a variety of use cases and consumer needs. 

The challenge, however, is that hundreds of different wallets already exist — all troubled by a lack of interoperability, limited capabilities, and questionable privacy and security. To level up existing data wallet infrastructure and unlock its full value, we must standardize the underlying protocols, data models, and interfaces.

Standardization 

“Digital wallets are becoming the interface to our entire digital lives. But today’s early-stage wallets are incompatible and non-standardized. It’s time for everyone to come to the table to create a core engine that adopts a set of standards with built-in interoperability to help our digital world flourish.” – Open Wallet Foundation

The use of standardized protocols enables interoperability and data sharing across wallets and applications and allows for additional value and services to emerge. Much like the browser wars and early stages of the web, wallets face a similar dilemma where various solutions are competing for attention. By implementing standardization at the infrastructure level, portable and privacy-preserving wallets can be used across devices and applications, industries, and use cases. This new approach unlocks a new kind of value exchange between individuals and organizations. 

How can Inrupt help?

Inrupt’s vision is for ESS to act as the foundational engine to drive wallet applications built on Solid standards that provide interoperability, security, and portability. For individuals, they gain greater convenience and enhanced services across their digital engagements. For enterprises and governments, they benefit from a next-gen data infrastructure with the capabilities to: 

• Establish a direct connection to their customers and citizens 
• Enhance first-party application with native consent management for better data quality
• Increase privacy and trust for user data management 
• Build on standards that lead to application and data interoperability

New Solution: Inrupt’s Universal Data Wallet Infrastructure 

Hello, World. Meet Inrupt’s Data Wallet built on the Solid standard. 

Inrupt’s Data Wallet lives on top of a user’s Solid Pod, managed by ESS — an enterprise-ready data infrastructure product. The Pod provides secure data storage for digital assets, credentials, and other useful items. Because the wallet is powered by Solid Pods, and therefore the Solid standard, the wallet’s data can be leveraged or enriched by any application or service in an interoperable way while still preserving user privacy and data security. 

Inrupt’s ESS is the perfect engine to power an organization’s universal data wallet infrastructure. ESS is a commercial implementation of the W3C Solid standard that defines a user-centric method of storing and sharing data using standard web protocols (HTTP). 

ESS provides the server infrastructure to support standard create, read, update, and delete operations with fine-grained access control, as defined by the Solid standard. By choosing Solid and ESS, organizations can adopt a new data infrastructure that changes the way data is managed and shared. Data is managed and shared in a more collaborative experience between individuals and organizations emphasizing transparency, consent, and trust.

Inrupt’s Data Wallet creates a new two-way channel of communication allowing organizations to increase the accuracy of the data stored about their users and improve the trust relationship between users and an organization. 

Inrupt’s Data Wallet will redefine digital interactions and empower individuals with a new CX: 

• Store data from devices and applications in one secure location
• Give consent for applications to access and store data in their Pod
• Control which part of personal data is shared, with whom, for how long and for what purpose

This combination of Solid standards, a data wallet, and ESS unlocks the true potential of customers’ personal data by delivering new services with easy access to more consented, first and zero-party data. Organizations can combine data from different, approved sources for better data and insights. They can also be confident of one protocol for managing data, governance and consent layers per individual, and regulation neutrality based on global data privacy legislation. 

Launch: Available Features, Capabilities, and Tooling

Available today are the core capabilities of a universal data wallet infrastructure for organizations and developers to build and use. Alongside ESS, Inrupt provides tooling and professional services to help facilitate and streamline the building of data wallets. 

In summary, the Inrupt Data Wallet consists of a React Native Wallet UI that connects to the ESS Wallet API for interacting with data stored in a Pod. The ESS Wallet API makes it fast and efficient to build new wallet solutions, or to incorporate wallet capabilities into existing first-party applications. This release includes: 

Wallet API Service 

Inrupt’s Wallet API Service is a simple and convenient API that abstracts the underlying Solid protocol to simplify building wallets out of the box. This API exposes commonly used wallet functions so that any application can easily leverage the underlying wallet capabilities. This is a great way of introducing wallet capabilities into existing applications.  The Wallet API provides capabilities for: 

• Sign-up and provisioning a wallet (a Pod) within the ESS service
• Creating, reading, updating and deleting resources stored in the wallet
• Managing access requests and access grants (consent) for data in the wallet
• Requesting access to data on wallets 

White-label Data Wallet 

Inrupt’s open source React Native white-label wallet reference implementation provides a fast and convenient way for an organization to get started building a wallet solution of their own. It provides the UI foundation that can be easily customized to have the specific branding and user experience of the organization. This is ideal for organizations that would like to launch wallet capabilities separate from existing apps, or as a greenfield initiative with a strong foundation to get started. Additionally, it can be used simply as a reference implementation for using the ESS Wallet API, offering guidance for building a new wallet application or adding wallet capabilities into an existing application. 

This Inrupt Wallet includes a number of capabilities and features out of the box, including:

• Store and share resources in the Wallet by scanning a QR code
• View and manage access requests to resources stored in the Wallet (manage consent)
• Present a QR code identifying the Wallet to simplify B2C wallet interactions
• View simple summaries of W3C Verifiable Credentials stored in the Wallet
• View photos stored in the wallet
• Download Wallet resources to the local mobile device 

Customers who want to perform an evaluation of these capabilities can do so by using the React Native white-label reference wallet application implementation connected to Inrupt’s Pod Spaces — a developer trial of ESS.

To get started today, Inrupt’s experts and services are available to work alongside your technical teams for pilot and production deployment of your wallet application with an ESS license. 

‍Solid Movement

Inrupt’s Data Wallet is an exciting step in the development of Solid. It demonstrates how Inrupt’s ESS is a universal data infrastructure capable of supporting interoperable data wallets. This combination of ESS and the Data Wallet positions any organization so that it can immediately accommodate current and future regulations and the need for improved, trusted digital services built upon global standards — consistent, secure, interoperable and portable. 

Solid continues to inspire. Again and again, it proves to be more than just a concept, a protocol, or a technology. Solid is a movement. As the vital piece of the third layer of the web, the momentum of Solid’s adoption will continue with exciting deployments and applications going live around the world. 

Learn more or request a demo here.