The present disclosure describes techniques that improve upon the use of authentication tokens as a means of verifying a user identity. Rather than facilitating the issuance of authentication tokens as bearer tokens, whereby any user may present an authentication token to a secure service provider for access to secure service, this disclosure describes techniques for generating recursive authentication tokens that are digitally signed by an Identity Service Provider (IDP) and the entity that purports to present the authentication token to the service provider. Additionally, a recursive token application is described that is configured to nest preceding authentication tokens that trace back to an initial secure service request. For example, a recursive authentication token received by a second service provider may include, nested therein, the first service provider recursive authentication token and a preceding client recursive authentication token that is associated with the initial secure service request.