Diversity and interoperability: how will it work? A Mydex paper for PDEC

A personal data ecosystem that works for individuals will offer diversity and interoperability. Whether the whole ecosystem ends up looking like a banking network, credit card franchises or something different (and there are still many visions) clearly it will not work well for individuals, government or business as a monoculture or monopoly.

This is why Mydex reaches out to like-minded businesses, and consistently supports credible efforts towards choice, openness and appropriate standardisation. This includes Kantara’s work on data sharing agreements, and the Open Identity Exchange OIX efforts on trust frameworks. The Mydex APIs are open and we use open source software.

But what does diversity and interoperability mean, and how can we achieve it?

There’s an important role here for the Personal Data Ecosystem Consortium (PDEC) set up by Kaliya “Identity Woman” Hamlyn. Mydex joined PDEC from day one. We see it as like a trade association or working group of businesses based on the idea of personal information being controlled by the individual.

PDEC held a London meeting early in November on this question of interoperability. Mydex CEO David Alexander contributed this paper below:

Interoperability, portability etc: some definitions

PDS Interoperability — whereby an individual with a personal data store (PDS) in the one PDS platform could connect and exchange information with an individual with another PDS platform (contact details etc..) and vice versa
PDS Portability — the ability for a PDS from one platform to be able to migrate to another PDS platform
PDS Synchronisation — the ability for the same individual to have a PDS in one or more PDS platforms and maintain synchronisation between them for common data attributes. One possible scenario of use is that an individual may elect to use one PDS for certain aspects of their life and another PDS for other aspects. The benefit is shared data between the two that both need.
App connectivity — An app developed to work in one PDS platform to be able to connect to a another PDS platform and work there as well

Together we must work towards:

Diversity — range of PDS to common standards
Interoperability — connect & exchange info with others on other platform PDS
Portability — any PDS holder can migrate to another
Synchronization — same individual can have PDS in multiple platforms in sync
Federation — different PDS for different things
Linkability — bring single view based on permissioning settings
Application interoperability — Apps work over multiple service platforms

Challenges for the interoperability layer

Data standards
Protocol standards
Transaction management, availability, stability

Is this the right starting point? Of course the devil is in the detail but did we miss any important headings? Do you share or disagree with this outline?

We’d be glad of any comments and suggestions from the individual, government and business perspective (and if the latter do consider joining in the PDEC work).