Private State Token API

Limited availability

The Private State Token API provides a mechanism for conveying trust in a user’s authenticity from one browsing context to another, without sharing the user’s identity or allowing their activity across websites to be tracked.

Concepts and usage

To prevent fraud on the web, websites and services need to establish and convey trust signals that prove a user is who they say they are, and is not a bot pretending to be a human or a malicious third party defrauding a real person or service.

• Trust is established using mechanisms such as CAPTCHAs, verifying email addresses, or making purchases.
• Trust is traditionally conveyed between different origins using mechanisms such as third-party cookies.

Unfortunately, current cookie-based techniques for conveying such information are not secure and can be used for fingerprinting and tracking users, which is problematic for user privacy.

Private state tokens solve this problem, allowing trust signals to be conveyed across origins without passive tracking using the Privacy Pass protocol in the background.

[!NOTE] Private state tokens are not a replacement for CAPTCHAs or other trust-establishing mechanisms. Private state tokens provide a way to convey trust in a user, not establish trust in a user.

How do private state tokens work?

1. When a website has established trust in a user (for example via a CAPTCHA), it can issue a cryptographic token that is stored securely by the user’s browser. This website is called an issuer.
2. Another website can then verify that the same user is trustworthy by checking if their browser has a token stored that was issued by an issuer that the website trusts. If so, they can redeem that token to get a redemption record. This website is called a redeemer.
3. The redemption record is then used to give the user access to services as if they were authenticated directly with that site, and can also be forwarded onto other parties to convey trust.

Private state tokens are encrypted, so it isn’t possible to identify an individual or connect trusted and untrusted instances to discover user identity.

See Using the Private State Token API for a guide to using private state tokens.

Interfaces

The Private State Token API has no distinct interfaces of its own.

Extensions to other interfaces

• hasPrivateToken()
  • : Returns a promise that fulfills with a boolean indicating whether the browser has a private state token stored from a particular issuer.
• hasRedemptionRecord()
  • : Returns a promise that fulfills with a boolean indicating whether the browser has a redemption record originating from a particular issuer.
• privateToken
  • : Mirrors the value of the <iframe> privateToken attribute.
• fetch() / Request(), the privateToken option
  • : An object representing a private state token operation. Fetch calls with the privateToken option specified initiate operations such as issuing or redeeming tokens.
• setPrivateToken()
  • : Adds private state token information to an XMLHttpRequest call, to initiate private state token operations.

HTML elements

• <iframe>, the privateToken attribute
  • : Contains a string representation of an options object representing a private state token operation. IFrames containing this attribute can be used to initiate operations such as issuing or redeeming tokens.

HTTP headers

• Permissions-Policy; the private-state-token-issuance directive
  • : Controls usage of token-request operations.
• Permissions-Policy; the private-state-token-redemption directive
  • : Controls usage of token-redemption and send-redemption-record operations.
• Sec-Redemption-Record
  • : A request header that forwards a redemption record to another party to convey trust when a send-redemption-record fetch request is made.
• Sec-Private-State-Token
  • : Exists both as a request and a response header, used during issuance and redemption requests to transmit request data (such as blinded nonces used to generate tokens) and response data (such as tokens and redemption records).
• Sec-Private-State-Token-Crypto-Version
  • : A request header sent to an issuer server that states which cryptographic protocol version should be used to sign blinded nonces when generating tokens.
• Sec-Private-State-Token-Lifetime
  • : A response header, sent by the redeemer server, to indicate to the browser how long it should cache a particular redemption record for.

Security considerations

Private state token token-request operations are controlled by the private-state-token-issuance Permissions-Policy directive, whereas token-redemption and send-redemption-record operations are controlled by the private-state-token-redemption directive.

Specifically, where a defined policy blocks usage, any attempts to initiate private state token operations via fetch requests will fail.

Examples

See the Private State Token Demo Issuer for an example implementation.

Specifications

Browser compatibility