The Personal Data (PD) extension provides additional concepts to represent different types and categories of personal data for use with the [[[DPV]]]. The canonical URL for PD extension is https://w3id.org/dpv/pd and the namespace for terms is https://w3id.org/dpv/pd#, the suggested prefix is pd, and this document along with source and releases are available at https://github.com/w3c/dpv.
Contributing: The DPVCG welcomes participation to improve the DPV and associated resources, including expansion or refinement of concepts, requesting information and applications, and addressing open issues. See contributing guide for further information.
DPV and Related Resources
[[[DPV]]]: is the base/core specification for the 'Data Privacy Vocabulary', which is extended for Personal Data [[PD]], Locations [[LOC]], Risk Management [[RISK]], Technology [[TECH]], and [[AI]]. Specific [[LEGAL]] extensions are also provided which model jurisdiction specific regulations and concepts . To support understanding and applications of [[DPV]], various guides and resources [[GUIDES]] are provided, including a [[PRIMER]]. A Search Index of all concepts from DPV and extensions is available.
[[DPV]] and related resources are published on GitHub. For a general overview of the Data Protection Vocabularies and Controls Community Group [[DPVCG]], its history, deliverables, and activities - refer to DPVCG Website. For meetings, see the DPVCG calendar.
The peer-reviewed article “Creating A Vocabulary for Data Privacy” presents a historical overview of the DPVCG, and describes the methodology and structure of the DPV along with describing its creation. An open-access version can be accessed here, here, and here. The article Data Privacy Vocabulary (DPV) - Version 2, accepted for presentation at the 23rd International Semantic Web Conference (ISWC 2024), describes the changes made in DPV v2.
Categorisation of Concepts
[[[PD]]] provides additional concepts that extend the DPV's personal data taxonomy based on an opinionated structure contributed by R. Jason Cronk from EnterPrivacy. This separation is to enable adopters to decide whether the extension's concepts are useful to them, or to use other external vocabularies, or define their own.
Concepts within [[PD]] are broadly structured in top-down fashion by utilising their relevance and origin as:
Internal (within the person): e.g. Preferences, Knowledge, Beliefs
External (visible to others): e.g. Behavioural, Demographics, Physical, Sexual, Identifying
Household: e.g. personal or household activities
Social: e.g. Family, Friends, Professional, Public Life, Communication
Financial: e.g. Transactional, Ownership, Financial Account
Tracking: e.g. Location, Device based, Contact
Historical: e.g. Life History
pd:External: Information about external characteristics that can be observed
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pd:Financial: Information about finance including monetary characteristics and transactions
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pd:Historical: Information about historical data related to or relevant regarding history or past events
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pd:Household: Information about personal or household activities
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pd:Internal: Information about internal characteristics that cannot be seen or observed
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pd:Profile: Profile or user profile is information and representation of characteristics associated with person(s) or group(s)
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pd:Social: Information about social aspects such as family, public life, or professional networks.
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pd:Tracking: Information used to track an individual or group e.g. location or email
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Extended Taxonomy
Internal
Internal concepts represent information that is internal to the person i.e. cannot be perceived by others without the participation of the person. This includes preferences, knowledge, and beliefs that the person has.
pd:Authenticating: Information about authentication and information used for authenticating
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pd:Password: Information about password used in the process of authenticating the individual as an user accessing a system.
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pd:PINCode: Information about Personal identification number (PIN), which is usually used in the process of authenticating the individual as an user accessing a system.
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pd:SecretText: Information about secret text used in the process of authenticating the individual as an user accessing a system, e.g., when recovering a lost password.
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External concepts represent information that is external to the person i.e. is visible to other people. This includes behaviours, demographic traits, physical attributes, sexual preferences, and identifying characteristics.
pd:BrowserHistory: Information about and including web browsing history
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pd:BrowsingReferral: Information about web browsing referrer or referral, which can be based on location, targeted referrals, direct, organic search, social media or actions, campaigns.
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pd:CallLog: Information about the calls that an individual has made.
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pd:LinkClicked: Information about the links that an individual has clicked.
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pd:PerformanceAtWork: Information about performance at work or within work environments
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pd:Personality: Information about personality (e.g., categorization in terms of the Big Five personality traits)
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pd:Reliability: Information about reliability (e.g. of a person)
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pd:ServiceConsumptionBehavior: Information about the consumption of a service, e.g. time and duration of consumption.
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pd:TVViewingBehavior: Information about TV viewing Behavior, such as timestamps of channel change, duration of viewership, content consumed
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pd:VehicleUsage: Information about usage of vehicles, e.g. driving statistics
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pd:VehicalLicenseNumber: Information about vehicle license number
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pd:VehicalLicenseRegistration: Information about vehicle license registration
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pd:VehicleUsage: Information about usage of vehicles, e.g. driving statistics
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Financial
Financial concepts represent information about transactions, ownership of assets, accounts associated with finances such as with banks, and other similar concepts.
pd:Income: Information about financial income e.g. for individual or household or family
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pd:LoanRecord: Information about loans, whether applied, provided or rejected, and its history
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pd:Purchase: Information about purchases such as items bought e.g. grocery or clothing
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pd:PurchasesAndSpendingHabit: Information about analysis of purchases made and money spent expressed as a habit e.g. monthly shopping trends
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pd:Sale: Information about sales e.g. selling of goods or services
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pd:Tax: Information about financial tax e.g. tax records or tax due
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pd:Transaction: Information about financial transactions e.g. bank transfers
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Historical
Historical concepts represent information regarding life history of a person.
pd:LifeHistory: Information about personal history regarding events or activities - including their occurrences that might be directly related or have had an influence (e.g. World War, 9/11)
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Social
Social concepts represent information about aspects such as friends, family, public life, and professional networks which are considered as part of the person's social information.
pd:Communication: Information communicated from or to an individual
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pd:EmailContent: Information about the contents of Emails sent or received
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pd:SocialNetwork: Information about friends or connections expressed as a social network
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pd:Acquantaince: Information about acquaintances in a social network.
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pd:Association: Information about associations in a social network with other individuals, groups, or entities e.g. friend of a friend
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pd:Connection: Information about and including connections in a social network
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pd:Friend: Information about friends in a social network, including aspects of friendships such as years together or nature of friendship.
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pd:GroupMembership: Information about groups and memberships included or associated with a social network
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pd:TradeUnionMembership: Information about trade union memberships and related topics
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Tracking
Tracking concepts represent information that can be used to track an individual or a group - such as location or email.
pd:Contact: Information about contacts or used for contacting e.g. email address or phone number
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pd:BrowserFingerprint: Information about the web browser which is used as a 'fingerprint'
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pd:DeviceSoftware: Information about software on or related to a device.
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pd:DeviceApplications: Information about applications or application-like software on a device.
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pd:DeviceOperatingSystem: Information about the operating system (OS) or system software that manages hardware or software resources.
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pd:IPAddress: Information about the Internet Protocol (IP) address of a device
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pd:MACAddress: Information about the Media Access Control (MAC) address of a device
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pd:DigitalFingerprint: Information about a 'digital fingerprint' created for identification
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pd:Identifier: Information about an identifier or name used for identification
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pd:UserAgent: Information about software acting on behalf of users e.g. web browser
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Special Categories
Special categories are a 'special' type of sensitive personal data requiring additional considerations or obligations defined in laws (or through other forms) that regulate how they should be used or prohibit their use until specific obligations are met. The special categories are defined based on the broad categories defined in [[GDPR]] Article 9, which are further expanded through the concepts defined in PD extension.
pd:Biometric: Information about biometrics and biometric characteristics.
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Information about web browsing referrer or referral, which can be based on location, targeted referrals, direct, organic search, social media or actions, campaigns.
Information about personal history regarding events or activities - including their occurrences that might be directly related or have had an influence (e.g. World War, 9/11)
Information about Personal identification number (PIN), which is usually used in the process of authenticating the individual as an user accessing a system.
Information about secret text used in the process of authenticating the individual as an user accessing a system, e.g., when recovering a lost password.
The following external concepts are re-used within PD:
External
Contributors
The following people have contributed to this vocabulary. The names are ordered alphabetically. The affiliations are informative do not represent formal endorsements. Affiliations may be outdated. The list is generated automatically from the contributors listed for defined concepts.
Beatriz Esteves (IDLab, IMEC, Ghent University)
Elmar Kiesling (Vienna University of Technology)
Fajar Ekaputra (Vienna University of Technology)
Georg P. Krog (Signatu AS)
Harshvardhan J. Pandit (ADAPT Centre, Dublin City University)
Paul Ryan (Uniphar PLC)
Rudy Jacob (Proximus)
Funding Acknowledgements
Funding Sponsors
The DPVCG was established as part of the SPECIAL H2020 Project, which received funding from the European Union’s Horizon 2020 research and innovation programme under grant agreement No. 731601 from 2017 to 2019.
Harshvardhan J. Pandit was funded to work on DPV from 2020 to 2022 by the Irish Research Council's Government of Ireland Postdoctoral Fellowship Grant#GOIPD/2020/790.
The ADAPT SFI Centre for Digital Media Technology is funded by Science Foundation Ireland through the SFI Research Centres Programme and is co-funded under the European Regional Development Fund (ERDF) through Grant#13/RC/2106 (2018 to 2020) and Grant#13/RC/2106_P2 (2021 onwards).
Funding Acknowledgements for Contributors
The contributions of Beatriz Esteves have received funding through the PROTECT ITN Project from the European Union’s Horizon 2020 research and innovation programme under the Marie Skłodowska-Curie grant agreement No 813497.
The contributions of Harshvardhan J. Pandit have been made with the financial support of Science Foundation Ireland under Grant Agreement No. 13/RC/2106_P2 at the ADAPT SFI Research Centre.
