Career Wallets are apps that let individuals manage their own digitally validated diplomas and other proofs of qualifications, certificates of good conduct and so forth, letting them be presented e.g. to employers when they start work. Such wallets give the employees greater control over their own details and credentials, as well as a secure way of storing such data digitally.
There are also major benefits for HR departments:
- validation of qualifications when onboarding new staff goes more quickly and efficiently (cost savings), and
- less fraud with diplomas and other certificates.
What is a Career Wallet?
Practical tests
Various practical tests are already underway. About forty large employers are collaborating on this with Rabobank and Randstad. The UWV (Employee Insurance Administration Agency) is running an ongoing practical test with the Municipality of Rotterdam, and the Ministry of the Interior and Kingdom Relations (BZK) is currently developing a wallet for the European Blockchain Infrastructure allowing e.g. verified credentials for diplomas to be shared.
Other projects are working with verified credentials too. The public-private consortium uNLock has worked on presenting coronavirus test results using verified credentials and several municipalities, the Association of Netherlands Municipalities VNG and the Central Judicial Collection Agency CJIB are testing credentials as a way of improving the debt assistance process.
Together with Digicampus, BZK and the Ministry of Social Affairs and Employment (SZW) plus the parties involved in the practical testing, the DBC is working on creating a set of agreements about data sharing by governmental authorities that can be used by Career Wallets. Getting such data into circulation is an important precondition if Career Wallets are to be widely usable.