<aside> 🚧 This is a DRAFT specification and under constant improvement. Expect changes!

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<aside> 🚧 The protocol details of this specification is being worked on progressively

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Rationale

Data is a valuable asset for an individual. Users should have control over their data, where it’s stored and be able to prove facts about the data. Most current systems store data in the cloud or the system-owner’s premises, which does not guarantee that the user has control over their data. More importantly, this leads to siloed systems that store data in different places, resulting in poor interoperability.

Existing solutions like IPFS, and Ceramic Network provide one model of a solution where data is stored in a public and distributed network of nodes. However, in a public network, even encrypted data can be monitored and collected- where patient bad actors might be able to simply wait for encryption schemes to break and leak sensitive data.

Thus, for certain sensitive forms of data (for example health data), stronger guarantees of data ownership are required. Namely, one should be able to specify the location where a blob of data is stored without the blob being exposed to the whims of a public network. On top of these stronger ownership guarantees, methods of permission-ing that data to third parties must also be a part of this system.

Solution

Habitat aims to solve the above problems by defining a protocol to:

• Provide users access to and ownership of their data
• Provide organizations or other entities access to user data
• Allowing users to authorize organizations or other entities access to their data

Habitat builds upon the DIF Decentralized Web Node (DWN) protocol. DWN is a data storage and message relay mechanism entities can use to locate public or private permissioned data related to a given Decentralized Identifier (DID). The specifications here help clarify the use of DWN in certain scenarios.

Source: DWN specifications

<aside> 📢 This specification heavily relies on the DWN specifications. We recommend reading the DWN specifications before reading the Habitat specifications.

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Status of This Document

Habitat is a DRAFT specification under development within Happily Ever After. This specification will be updated to incorporate feedback from the wider community. We encourage reviewers to comment on this document with a Notion account.

In the future, we hope to either incorporate this specification as part of the Secure Data Storage Working Group at DIF, or published under its own community with representatives from various stakeholders.

Terminology

Majority of terminology can be found in the specifications for DWN. Here are some additional terminology used in this specification: