User Identification
-------------------

.. note::

   LaterPay does not store access information for
   :doc:`Contributions </platform/dialogs/contributions/index>` or
   :doc:`Donations </platform/dialogs/donations/index>`, so
   merchants using them do not need the identification API endpoints.

Merchants need a way to refer to specific users when asking
:doc:`LaterPay's Access API <../access/index>` for access status data for a
user.

There are two mechanisms for that:

    1. :doc:`lptokens <../identification/user_tokens>` - expiring LaterPay
       provided user IDs that don't require merchants to track their users.

    2. :doc:`Merchant Provided User IDs <../identification/muids>` that are more
       flexible and might be a good fit for merchants with existing user
       identification mechanism that are willing to integrate them with
       LaterPay's API.