4.3.7 Data Provenance

By creating transparency and offering clearing functionality, the International Data Spaces provides a way to track the provenance and lineage of data. This is strongly linked to the topics of data ownership and data sovereignty. Data provenance tracking can be implemented with local tracking components integrated into IDS Connectors and a centralized provenance storage component attached to the Clearing House (see Section 3.1.1), which receives all logs concerning activities performed in the course of a data exchange transaction, and requests confirmations of successful data exchange from the Data Provider and the Data Consumer. In doing so, data provenance is always recursively traceable. In, addition provenance information can be integrated into the IDS Vocabulary, so as to enable the participants to maintain data provenance as part of the metadata during the process of data exchange.

The International Data Spaces thereby provides the possibility to implement and use appropriate concepts and standards. However, it does not force participants to use these concepts and standards. It is therefore up to the individual participant to provide correct information (i.e., metadata) on the provenance of data.