Custom Integration

You will need to write your own custom sgID integration if your app uses a programming language that sgID does not have a SDK for. This page provides a guide for how to implement this custom integration.

When a user tries to log in to your application with sgID, you need to:

Step 1: Generate a PKCE pair

Proof Key for Code Exchange (PKCE) is an OAuth 2.0 enhancement and protects against various potential vulnerabilities such as authorization code interception. A unique PKCE pair must be generated for each request and consists of a code_verifier and a code_challenge .

Example PKCE pair

code_verifier = 'bbGcObXZC1YGBQZZtZGQH9jsyO1vypqCGqnSU_4TI5S'
code_challenge = 'zaqUHoBV3rnhBF2g0Gkz1qkpEZXHqi2OrPK1DqRi-Lk'

Code verifier

The code_verifier should be a high-entropy cryptographic random string with an ABNF as follows

ABNF:
code-verifier = 43*128unreserved
unreserved = ALPHA / DIGIT / "-" / "." / "_" / "~"
ALPHA = %x41-5A / %x61-7A
DIGIT = %x30-39

Code challenge

The code_challenge should be generated from the code_verifier using the S256 code challenge method. The S256 transformation is described below together with the ABNF of the code_challenge.

S256 Transformation:
code_challenge = BASE64URL-ENCODE(SHA256(ASCII(code_verifier)))

ABNF:
code-challenge = 43*128unreserved
unreserved = ALPHA / DIGIT / "-" / "." / "_" / "~"
ALPHA = %x41-5A / %x61-7A
DIGIT = %x30-39

// Note that the ABNF for code-challenge is identical to the ABNF for code-verifier

sgID only supports the S256 code challenge method as the plain method is insecure (see the PKCE RFC) and only exists for backwards compatibility reasons.

The code_challenge must be sent to the sgID authorization server when initiating an authorization request, whereas the code_verifier must be provided when exchanging the OAuth authorization code for an access token. This allows the sgID server to verify that the server exchanging the access token is the same server that initiated the request!

Here are some cryptography libraries you could use to generate these values:

Node.js - pkce-challenge
Python - pkce

Step 2: Create an authorization URL to redirect to

To allow your user to login into your app with sgID, you need to create an sgID authorization URL.

Your app should redirect your user's browser to this authorization URL, which will display a QR code that they can scan to authenticate with the Singpass mobile app:

Example URL

https://api.id.gov.sg/v2/oauth/authorize?
    response_typecode
    &client_id=abc
    &redirect_uri=https://example.com/callback
    &scope=openid%20myinfo.name%20myinfo.passport_expiry_date%20myinfo.nric_number
    &code_challenge=zaqUHoBV3rnhBF2g0Gkz1qkpEZXHqi2OrPK1DqRi-Lk
    &nonce=BQO8SV3ALIYA808IZ8O7PKWRI8A8X6MI
    &state=tk39drykro3

You will need to supply the following query string parameters:

Key

Value

response_type

Must be set to code because sgID only supports the authorization code flow

client_id

Provided to you during

redirect_uri

The callback URL that you provided during

scope

A URL-encoded string of the scopes your client will request for

code_challenge

The code challenge used for PKCE. Used to prevent authorization code interceptions and cross-site request forgery (CSRF)

nonce (optional)

Randomly generated string to be returned in the id_token. Used to prevent replay attacks. Refer to the for implementation details

state (optional)

A unique and non-guessable value associated with each authentication request about to be initiated

Step 3: Exchange auth code for access token and ID token

After the user authenticates with the Singpass mobile app, the user's browser will be redirected back to the callback URL you provided, together with the authorization code and a state value.

Example callback URL

https://example.com/callback?
    code=someAuthCode
    &state=tk39drykro3

To exchange the code for the access token and ID token, make a POST request to

https://api.id.gov.sg/v2/oauth/token

with the following request body parameters:

Key

Value

client_id

Provided to you during

client_secret

Provided to you during

code

The value returned to you as part of the callback URL

grant_type

Must be set to authorization_code

redirect_uri

The callback URL that you provided during

code_verifier

A cryptographically random string that was used to generate your code challenge in the authorization request.

You should receive a response with the following attributes:

Key

Value

access_token

Access Token to be used with retrieving the encrypted payload from user info endpoint

id_token

JWT token with the associated user claims. Encodes the following:

iss (hostname)
sub (end user's unique identifier)
aud (client id)
nonce (only returned if provided in authorization URL)
exp (seconds before auth request and access token expires)
iat (timestamp at which id token was issued)

Example JSON response body:

{
    "access_token": "I6zGnxYTy4fZubtb7LcG48K1fHWb5b",
    "id_token": "eyJhbGciOiJ...[truncated]...L6zm6LaWfkBoA",
}

The ID token is signed with sgID's private key. It is highly recommended that you verify the ID token with our public keys, which can be found here.

Step 4: Request for user info with access token

Once you have the access token, you can use it to request information about the user corresponding to the scopes that you requested. To do so, make a GET request to

https://api.id.gov.sg/v2/oauth/userinfo

with the access token you received in the previous step. Example request:

GET /v2/oauth/userinfo HTTP/1.1
Host: api.id.gov.sg
Authorization: Bearer I6zGnxYTy4fZubtb7LcG48K1fHWb5b
Content-Length: 57
Content-Type: application/json

You should receive a response with the following attributes:

Key

Value

sub

End user's unique identifier for your client - This is the same value as the sub claim in the id_token returned from the previous response.

Note that as part of sgID's privacy-preserving measures, each end user's unique identifier is different for each sgID client

key

An AES-128-GCM symmetric key, or a block key, that is encrypted with your client's RSA-2048 public key.

data

JSON object which contains the data you requested in your application scope. To prevent sgID from reading the data, the payload is encrypted with the block key referenced in the definition for the key attribute in the same response body.

Refer to the for instructions on decrypting the payload.

Example JSON response body:

{
    "sub": "abcdef",
    "key": "eyJhbGcDpgYRL4chyXTjgim...[truncated]...Gxa2tO7nghnu-ewD5ZqA",
    "data": {
        // Note: this will contain all the scopes you requested
        "myinfo.nric_number": "eyJlbmMiOiJ...[truncated]...QafqHmGERc3A",
        "myinfo.name": "eyJlbmMiOi...[truncated]...UgJ9hDSTNLVw",
        "myinfo.passport_expiry_date": "eyJlbmMiOi...[truncated]...UvS41pKk9VKQ",
    }
}

Step 5: Decrypt the user info payload

As part of sgID's privacy-preserving measures, user data is transmitted in encrypted form, so that the sgID server is unable to read the data being transacted. The data is encrypted with a block key, which itself is encrypted with your client's public key so that only your client has access to the block key.

Therefore, to obtain the user data in plaintext, you will need to:

Decrypt the key received from the user info response with your client's private key. This will give you the block key.
Decrypt the data received from the user info response with the block key you have just obtained.

Example decryption:

// We use the node-jose package for working with JWEs and JWKs
// https://github.com/cisco/node-jose
import { JWE, JWK } from 'node-jose'

/**
* Decrypts data into an object of
* plaintext key-value pairs
*
* @param {string} encKey - encrypted block key
* @param {array} block - data
* @param {string} privateKeyPem - private key in pem format
* @returns {object}
*/
async function decryptData(encKey, block, privateKeyPem) {
 const result = {}
 
 // Decrypted encKey to get block key
 const privateKey = await JWK.asKey(privateKeyPem, 'pem')
 const key = await JWE.createDecrypt(privateKey).decrypt(encKey)
 
 // Parse the block key
 const decryptedKey = await JWK.asKey(key.plaintext, 'json')
 
 // Decrypt data
 for (const [key, value] of Object.entries(block)) {
   const { plaintext } = await JWE.createDecrypt(decryptedKey).decrypt(value)
   result[key] = plaintext.toString('ascii')
 }

 return result
}

from jwcrypto import jwk, jwe

def decrypt_data(self, encrypted_key: str, encrypted_data: dict):
    # Load private_key
    private_key = jwk.JWK.from_pem(self.private_key.encode("utf-8"))
    jwe_key = jwe.JWE()

    # Decrypt encrypted_key to get block_key
    jwe_key.deserialize(encrypted_key, key=private_key)
    block_key_json = jwe_key.payload

    # Load block_key
    block_key = jwk.JWK.from_json(block_key_json.decode("utf-8").replace("'", '"'))
    jwe_data = jwe.JWE()

    # Initialise dict
    data_dict = {}

    for field in encrypted_data:
        # Decrypt encrypted_data[field] to get actual_data
        jwe_data.deserialize(encrypted_data[field], key=block_key)
        data_dict[field] = jwe_data.payload.decode("utf-8")

    return data_dict

Example of decrypted data:

{
  "myinfo.name": "TIMOTHY TAN CHENG GUAN",
  "myinfo.nric_number": "S3000786G",
  "myinfo.passport_expiry_date": "2024-01-01",
}

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