Embodiments of the invention make the issuance of trustworthy device claims available to client devices as a service, so that a client device to which device claims are issued may use the device claims in relation to an attempt to access a network application. The service may conduct an assessment of the device's characteristics and/or state, characterize the results of this assessment in device claims, and issue the device claims to the device. The service may be accessible to a client device from outside administrative boundaries of an entity that makes a network application accessible, and thus may be useful to entities making network applications accessible in business-to-consumer (B2C) and business-to-business (B2B) topologies, such as over the publicly accessible Internet.