A relying party (RP) is an organization or service that depends on an identity provider or credential holder to authenticate people and supply trusted identity information. In federated identity, the RP receives assertions about authentication status and attributes through a protocol, then uses them to provide a service. section 2.5.2
A relying party operates within different trust arrangements:
- Federated RPs rely on identity providers for account services and authentication through SAML, OAuth, or OpenID Connect. section 2.5.2
- Enterprise RPs may use bespoke legal contracts defining how shared identity data is used and what the identity provider guarantees. section 2.5.2
- Decentralized-identity RPs verify credentials presented from wallets and choose which issuers or trust frameworks to accept. section 2.5.3
Benefits provider
An employer can act as the identity provider while a benefits provider acts as the relying party. Employees authenticate to the provider, while credentials and agreed attributes are exchanged with the employer behind the scenes. section 2.5.2
Credential-based verification
A potential employer can act as a relying party by verifying a university transcript credential presented by a person. An accreditation framework can help establish that the issuing university is trustworthy. section 2.5.3
