What’s a dataspace?
§3 of 6 · ~2 min read
The definition
A dataspace is a federated network of organisations that exchange data under negotiable, auditable policies, with no central data store. Each participant runs a connector. The connectors talk to each other directly. There is no platform in the middle holding the data; there is a shared rulebook that the connectors enforce.
The shared rulebook is what makes it a space; the connector is what makes the rulebook enforceable per organisation. A participant publishes what data they have on offer, under what policies; another participant requests it; the two connectors negotiate a contract that captures the agreed terms; only then does the data move. Every step is logged on both sides for the regulator who comes asking later.
Why the term feels new
If you have not heard of dataspaces before, that is correct. The term is roughly five years old, the working definition is younger than that, and almost no one outside Europe is talking about it yet. The reason it had to be invented is that the older categories of infrastructure (file shares, hosted databases, custom integrations) had no place to put the policy. The policy is the thing that makes the data exchange compliant; without it you have a transfer, not an exchange.
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