Proving your identity
After you've connected your email address, you can create your decentralised identity document (DID) by completing our
quick, one-time identity check. You’ll need to do this to send encrypted and authenticated emails, because c.Email signs
emails with your DID to prove to your recipients that you are who you say you are. For safety reasons, we don’t support
encrypted but unauthenticated emails.
You can use a passport or national identity card to prove your identity, as long as it contains an NFC chip. This is
because we need to read the data in this chip to store cryptographic proofs of your identity attributes. You can use an
expired ID to prove your identity and send authenticated emails in c.Email – however, some future features may require
you to have an in-date ID.
To verify your identity, first scan an NFC-enabled passport or national identity card in the c.Email app. Make sure
you:
- Find an area with good lighting.
- Remove any passport or phone covers or cases.
- If scanning your passport, lay the photo page of your passport and position it in the frame.
- If scanning your ID, scan the side with the machine-readable zone (MRZ) on. This is the two or three lines of
letters, numbers, and chevron symbols at the bottom of your ID. This could be on the front or back of your ID,
depending on the issuing country.
- Check that all details are visible, clear, and in focus.
- Don’t use a photocopy — they’re not accepted.
- Keep the document in the app’s camera frame, and hold until the box turns green.
You will then be prompted to scan the NFC chip in your ID:
- If scanning a passport, hold the upper back of your device to the back of your passport. This is where the NFC chip
is located in most passports. Alternatively, try holding your device to the front or photo page of your passport.
- If scanning an ID card, hold the upper back of your device to the ID.
- Hold until your device vibrates. If this doesn’t happen within a few seconds, try adjusting the position of your
device relative to your document.
Finally, you will be prompted to complete a quick liveness check. To do this, make sure you are in a place with good
lighting. Follow the on-screen instructions: keep your face in the frame provided, then hold the camera closer to your
face. This process should only take a few seconds.
You can skip verification and do it later, but you’ll need to complete it to send Secure or For Your Eyes Only emails.
You can pause or leave the verification process and return to it later — the app will have saved your progress.
Once you have confirmed your identity, we link your email address to your public verification key and public encryption
key via a smart contract executed on our blockchain (the C-layer). When you send or receive an email, c.Email
corresponds with the C-layer to retrieve the relevant public key to encrypt or authenticate it. Your private decryption
key remains on your device at all times.
