Copyright © 2025 the Contributors to the Guide for using DPV with RDFS and SKOS Specification, published by the Data Privacy Vocabularies and Controls Community Group under the W3C Community Contributor License Agreement (CLA). A human-readable summary is available.
This document will provide a guide for using DPV with RDFS and SKOS. Currently, it is a work in progress.
The guide for using DPV with RDFS/SKOS will provide guidance, considerations, and best practices for using DPV with RDFS/SKOS modelling. The guide will explain how RDFS enables creating a simple ontological models (concepts and properties) and how SKOS enables taxonomies/thesauri of concepts. The guide will also explain how this model suits use-cases which require referencing concepts directly (e.g. we use Consent) instead of or alongside instantiation (e.g. x is an instance of Consent) which is how OWL2 is expected to be used.
DPV Specifications: The [DPV] is the core specification within the DPV family, with the following extensions: Personal Data [PD], Locations [LOC], Risk Management [RISK], Technology [TECH] and [AI], [JUSTIFICATIONS], [SECTOR] specific extensions, and [LEGAL] extensions modelling specific jurisdictions and regulations. A [PRIMER] introduces the concepts and modelling of DPV specifications, and [GUIDES] describe application of DPV for specific applications and use-cases. The Search Index page provides a searchable hierarchy of all concepts. The Data Privacy Vocabularies and Controls Community Group (DPVCG) develops and manages these specifications through GitHub. For meetings, see the DPVCG calendar.
To cite and understand the structure of DPV, the article "Data Privacy Vocabulary (DPV) - Version 2.0" (2024) describes the current state of DPV and extensions from version 2.0 onwards (open access version here). The earlier article "Creating A Vocabulary for Data Privacy" (2019) describes how the DPV was developed (open access versions here, here, and here).
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.
This specification was published by the Data Privacy Vocabularies and Controls Community Group. It is not a W3C Standard nor is it on the W3C Standards Track. Please note that under the W3C Community Contributor License Agreement (CLA) there is a limited opt-out and other conditions apply. Learn more about W3C Community and Business Groups.
GitHub Issues are preferred for discussion of this specification.
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. Continued developments have been funded under: RECITALS Project funded under the EU's Horizon program with grant agreement No. 101168490.
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).
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; and the AI Accountability Lab (AIAL) which is supported by grants from following groups: the AI Collaborative, an Initiative of the Omidyar Group; Luminate; the Bestseller Foundation; and the John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation.