InAcademia allows users to validate their eligibility for offers at merchants’ websites (web shops) on the basis of the positive verification of their affiliation with an academic institution, but instead of allowing the retail service full access to the attributes released in response to a SAML request, InAcademia removes any superfluous data and returns a simple confirmation of affiliation (based on the eduPerson schema) and a pseudonmyised identifer.
This means that it helps to support the data minimisation principle.
It reduces the need for merchants to request e-mail address-based verification or scans of ID cards by accurately representing the real time affiliation of a person in the academic community.