OAuth 2.0

ID.me uses OAuth to provide authorized access to its API. We currently use OAuth 2 draft-22 This section describes how you can use the OAuth 2 protocol to to gain access to a user’s community data. Requests to retrieve user data require an access_token that is used to query ID.me’s REST API. These tokens are unique to a user and should be stored securely. An access_token expire 5 minutes after being issued.

ID.me supports both a full page redirect to the authorization endpoint as well as a popup window. Once you have registered an application, sample code and documentation will be available on the application details page. The ability to upload your company logo is also available.

Prerequisites

Create an ID.me Developer Account & Organization

To get started, you will need to create an ID.me developer account and organization to generate your client_id and client_secret. Once created, you can configure custom redirect_uri values to facilitate where ID.me returns the authorization_code

Step 1. Direct Users To Authorization Endpoint

The client app must send the user to the authorization endpoint in order to initiate the OAuth process. At the authorization endpoint, the user authenticates on the ID.me server and then grants or denies access to the app.

Authorization Endpoint:

https://api.id.me/oauth/authorize?client_id=CLIENT_ID&redirect_uri=REDIRECT_URI&response_type=code&scope=SCOPE&state=optional

Replace CLIENT_ID, REDIRECT_URI, and SCOPE with appropriate inputs

ID.me Widget (Optional)

<span
  id='idme-wallet-button'
  data-scope='SCOPE'
  data-client-id='CLIENT_ID'
  data-redirect='REDIRECT_URI'
  data-response='code'>
</span>
<script src='https://s3.amazonaws.com/idme/developer/idme-buttons/assets/js/idme-wallet-button.js'></script>

Replace CLIENT_ID, REDIRECT_URI, and SCOPE with appropriate inputs

Parameters

Step 2. Receive The Authorization Code

When the user completes the authorization process on ID.me, we will redirect the user to your redirect_uri with the authorization code parameter appended.

Redirect URI with code example

https://example.com/callback?code=488e864b

Step 3. Exchange Authorization Code For Access Token

Using the authorization code from the previous step, send a request to ID.me’s Token Endpoint (see below) to retrieve the payload containing your access_token and refresh_token. Each token’s expiration can be found in the payload.

CURL Example

curl -X POST -d "code=488e864b&client_id=CLIENT_ID&client_secret=CLIENT_SECRET&redirect_uri=REDIRECT_URI&grant_type=authorization_code" https://api.id.me/oauth/token

Replace CLIENT_ID, CLIENT_SECRET, REDIRECT_URI, and SCOPE with appropriate inputs

Endpoint

https://api.id.me/oauth/token

HTTP Request Method

POST

Response Content Type

application/json

Parameters

Step 4. Obtain Access Token

Example Payload

{ "access_token" : "a0b1c2d3f4g5h6i7j8k9l0m1n2o3p4q5" "token_type" : "bearer" "expires_in" : "300" "refresh_token" : "e7c77fe1fd5ece9aaccb129f6dd39431" "refresh_expires_in" : "604800" "scope" : "military" }

Parameters

Step 5. Exchange Access Token For User Data

Protected REST endpoints can be access by making HTTP requests with the access_token for a given user. The ID.me server will validate the access_token to ensure it has not expired and that its scope covers the requested resource.

Endpoint

https://api.id.me/api/public/v3/attributes.json

HTTP Request Method

GET

Response Content Type

application/json

Parameters

Example Payload

{ "attributes": [ { "handle": "fname", "name": "First Name", "value": "Sean" }, { "handle": "lname", "name": "Last Name", "value": "Moen" }, { "handle": "email", "name": "Email", "value": "[email protected]" }, { "handle": "uuid", "name": "Unique Identifier", "value": "d733a89e2e634f04ac2fe66c97f71612" }, { "handle": "zip", "name": "Zip Code", "value": "44058-1478" }, { "handle": "eid", "name": "External Identifier", "value": "FOO-bar-123" } ], "status": [ { "group": "military", "subgroups": [ "Service Member" ], "verified": true } ] }

Step 6. Parse the JSON Response

Parsing the JSON response correctly is key to implementing a scalable solution. How partners retrieve data from the JSON response can determine if all responses can be handled properly and a change to the payload for any reason such as adding a new attribute won’t break the integration. It is best practice to:

• Index values using the handle within the object
• Implement validation only for existing attribute values
• Store the raw JSON responses for auditing purposes
• Create table to store the verification status, uuid and authoritative data returned from ID.me REST API
• Leverage the uuid value as a foreign key on transactions to track ID.me user activity across your application ecosystem
• Pre-fill form fields to expedite the post verification user experience

Do not expect all attributes and status values to be returned in the same order within an object or array.

Example Data Types

The attribute type determines what data type will be returned from ID.me’s REST API. The following data types should be expected from ID.me’s REST API:

String

{ "handle": "email", "name": "Email", "value": "[email protected]" }

Integer

{ "handle": "age", "name": "Age", "value": 21 }

Array

{ "handle": "covid_vaccine_records", "name": "Covid Vaccine Records", "value": [ { "brand": "Pfizer", "date": "2022-01-01T00:00:00-05:00", "type": "primary" }, { "brand": "Pfizer", "date": "2022-02-02T00:00:00-05:00", "type": "primary" } ] }

Object

{ "handle": "previous_addresses", "name": "Previous address(es) if available", "value": [ { "normalized_street": "8281 Greensboro Drive", "street1": "8281 Greensboro Drive", "street2": "", "city": "West McLean", "state": "VA", "province": "", "zip": "22102", "country": "US", "normalized": "false", "primary": "false" }, { "normalized_street": "6647 WILDFLOWER DR S", "street1": "6647 WILDFLOWER DR S", "street2": "", "city": "COTTAGE GROVE", "state": "MN", "province": "", "zip": "55016", "country": "US", "normalized": "false", "primary": "false" } ] }

Do not expect all attribute values to be a string.