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.
GitHub Issues are preferred for
discussion of this specification.
1. DPV and Related Resources
Data Privacy Vocabulary (DPV) Specification: 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.
2. Introduction
Figure 1Overview of Location concepts and annotation properties in LOC extension
The Locations ([LOC]) extension extends the [DPV] to provide concepts representing locations based on the ISO 3166 and UN M49 standards. At the moment, it only provides country codes with plans for future iterations to provide additional concepts representing subdivisions in countries such as provinces and cities. In addition to ISO 3166 countries and subdivisions, the extension also provides a representation of geo-political supraunions such as the EU with a list of its member countries. Through these concepts, the [LOC] extension enables representation and use of locations with other DPV concepts, such as to indicate where the data is being stored or processed, or to indicate the data subjects are from a particular location. The Legal Jurisdiction-relevant concepts for DPV extensions use these concepts to represent jurisdictions, and to associate laws and authorities with their specific geo-political entities.
To express the ISO and UN codes for specific locations, the following properties have been introduced:
iso_alpha2 to represent the 2-letter ISO 3166 alpha2 codes
iso_alpha3 to represent the 3-letter ISO 3166 alpha3 codes
iso_numeric to represent the ISO 3166 numberic codes
To express unions and memberships such as for EEA and EU, the [SKOS] relations narrower/broader are used, with the union expressed as an instance of dpv:SupraNationalUnion.
Concept representing current EU with 27 Member States that became active from 2020 with exit of UK from EEA31 after Brexit
Usage Note
European Union (EU-27) with 27 Member States post Brexit. Note that EU27 is also applicable to the 27 Member States in the EU from 2007 to 2013, which is not represented in the LOC extension. If this concept should exist, please submit an issue or proposal
DPV uses the following terms from [RDF] and [RDFS] with their defined meanings:
rdf:type to denote a concept is an instance of another concept
rdfs:Class to denote a concept is a Class or a category
rdfs:subClassOf to specify the concept is a subclass (subtype, sub-category, subset) of another concept
rdf:Property to denote a concept is a property or a relation
The following external concepts are re-used within DPV:
7. 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.
Harshvardhan J. Pandit (ADAPT Centre, Dublin City University)
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 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.
