Internet DRAFT - draft-lukianets-open-ethics-transparency-protocol
draft-lukianets-open-ethics-transparency-protocol
dispatch N. Lukianets
Internet-Draft Open Ethics Initiative
Intended status: Experimental 15 November 2023
Expires: 18 May 2024
Open Ethics Transparency Protocol
draft-lukianets-open-ethics-transparency-protocol-04
Abstract
The Open Ethics Transparency Protocol (OETP) is an application-level
protocol for publishing and accessing ethical Disclosures of IT
Products and their Components. The Protocol is based on HTTP
exchange of information about the ethical "postures", provided in an
open and standardized format. The scope of the Protocol covers
Disclosures for systems such as Software as a Service (SaaS)
Applications, Software Applications, Software Components, Application
Programming Interfaces (API), Automated Decision-Making (ADM)
systems, and systems using Artificial Intelligence (AI). OETP aims
to bring more transparent, predictable, and safe environments for the
end-users. The OETP Disclosure Format is an extensible JSON-based
format.
Status of This Memo
This Internet-Draft is submitted in full conformance with the
provisions of BCP 78 and BCP 79.
Internet-Drafts are working documents of the Internet Engineering
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This Internet-Draft will expire on 18 May 2024.
Copyright Notice
Copyright (c) 2023 IETF Trust and the persons identified as the
document authors. All rights reserved.
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This document is subject to BCP 78 and the IETF Trust's Legal
Provisions Relating to IETF Documents (https://trustee.ietf.org/
license-info) in effect on the date of publication of this document.
Please review these documents carefully, as they describe your rights
and restrictions with respect to this document. Code Components
extracted from this document must include Revised BSD License text as
described in Section 4.e of the Trust Legal Provisions and are
provided without warranty as described in the Revised BSD License.
Table of Contents
1. Introduction . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3
2. Requirement Levels . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4
3. Terminology . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4
4. Protocol Model . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 6
4.1. Creation of Disclosure . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 6
4.1.1. Cryptographic Signature . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 6
4.1.2. Immutable Storage . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 6
4.1.3. Visual Labeling . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 6
4.2. Access to Disclosure . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 6
4.2.1. Initial Request to a Disclosure file . . . . . . . . 7
4.2.2. Access to Visual Trust Labels . . . . . . . . . . . . 7
4.2.3. Requirements for placement of Integrity Signature in
Visual Label . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7
4.2.4. Conformity assessment marks . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7
4.2.5. Accessibility considerations . . . . . . . . . . . . 7
4.3. Verification and Validation of Disclosure . . . . . . . . 8
4.3.1. Automated Disclosure processing . . . . . . . . . . . 8
4.3.2. Validation of Vendor's Disclosures . . . . . . . . . 9
4.3.3. Verification of Vendor's Disclosures . . . . . . . . 9
4.3.4. Progressive Verification . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 9
4.4. End-to-end transparency and formation of the composite
Disclosure . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 10
4.4.1. Open Supplier Policy . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 10
4.4.2. Request for Supplier's Disclosures . . . . . . . . . 11
4.4.3. Disclosure Chaining . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 11
4.4.4. Generation of the Composite Disclosure . . . . . . . 12
5. Example OETP Disclosure File . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 12
6. Security Considerations . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 13
6.1. Response content . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 13
6.2. Spoofing . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 14
6.3. Falsification . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 14
7. IANA Considerations . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 14
8. Areas for Future Study . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 14
9. References . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 15
9.1. Normative References . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 15
9.2. Informative References . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 15
Appendix A. Appendix . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 15
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A.1. Figures . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 15
A.1.1. Creation of Disclosure . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 15
A.1.2. Basic Disclosure Submission . . . . . . . . . . . . . 16
A.1.3. Progressive Verification Scheme for Disclosures . . . 17
A.1.4. Disclosure Chaining: Request-Response . . . . . . . . 18
A.1.5. Disclosure Chaining: Level Order Traversal . . . . . 19
Acknowledgments . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 20
Author's Address . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 20
1. Introduction
The Open Ethics Transparency Protocol (OETP or Protocol) describes
the creation and exchange of voluntary ethics Disclosures for IT
products. It is brought as a solution to increase the transparency
of how IT products are built and deployed. This document provides
details on how disclosures for data collection and data processing
practice are formed, stored, validated, and exchanged in a
standardized and open format.
OETP provides facilities for:
* *Informed consumer choices* : End-users able to make informed
choices based on their own ethical preferences and product
disclosure.
* *Industrial-scale monitoring* : Discovery of best and worst
practices within market verticals, technology stacks, and product
value offerings.
* *Legally-agnostic guidelines* : Suggestions for developers and
product-owners, formulated in factual language, which are legally-
agnostic and could be easily transformed into product requirements
and safeguards.
* *Iterative improvement* : Digital products, specifically, the ones
powered by artificial intelligence could receive nearly real-time
feedback on how their performance and ethical posture could be
improved to cover security, privacy, diversity, fairness, power
balance, non-discrimination, and other requirements.
* *Labeling and certification* : Mapping to existing and future
regulatory initiatives and standards.
The Open Ethics Transparency Protocol (OETP) is an application-level
protocol for publishing and accessing ethical Disclosures of IT
products and their components. The Protocol is based on HTTP
exchange of information about the ethical "postures", provided in an
open and standardized format. The scope of the Protocol covers
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Disclosures for systems such as Software as a Service (SaaS)
Applications, Software Applications, Software Components, Application
Programming Interfaces (API), Automated Decision-Making (ADM)
systems, and systems using Artificial Intelligence (AI). OETP aims
to bring more transparent, predictable, and safe environments for the
end-users. The OETP Disclosure Format is an extensible JSON-based
format.
2. Requirement Levels
The key words "MUST", "MUST NOT", "REQUIRED", "SHALL", "SHALL NOT",
"SHOULD", "SHOULD NOT", "RECOMMENDED", "NOT RECOMMENDED", "MAY", and
"OPTIONAL" in this document are to be interpreted as described in
BCP 14 [RFC2119] [RFC8174] when, and only when, they appear in all
capitals, as shown here.
3. Terminology
Disclosure: Disclosure (Ethics Disclosure, or self-disclosure) is
application-specific information about the data collection, data
processing, and decision-making practices of a Product, provided
by the Product Vendor (an individual developer or an
organization).
Disclosure Feed: A historical sequence of Disclosures, made for a
specific Product.
Disclosure Identity Provider: The automated Disclosure processing is
enabled by requests to both the Open Ethics Disclosure database
powered by Disclosure Identity Providers (DIP) and the Product's
OETP Disclosure file, stored in the product's website root
following OETP specification. DIP serves as a service point to
generate and retrieve generated disclosures.
Vendor: A legal person (an individual developer or an organization)
that owns one or several end-user Products, or acts as a Supplier
and provides Components for other Vendors.
Integrator: A legal person (an individual developer or an
organization) that deploys technology-powered services to the end-
users based on Product(s) from third-party Vendors.
Product: An IT system in the form of software, software as a service
system, application, software component, application programming
interface, or a physically embodied automated decision-making
agent.
Component: An IT system supplied by Vendor and integrated/embedded
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into end-user Products. Components themselves do not necessarily
interface with end-users.
Upstream Component: A Component that sends its outputs to the
Product Downstream in the data processing chain. Disclosure for
the Upstream Component is represented as a Child relative to the
Disclosure node of the Downstream Product.
Downstream Component: A Component that receives inputs from the
Components Upstream in the data processing chain. Disclosure for
the Downstream Component is represented as a Parent relative to
the Disclosure node of the Upstream Component.
Automated Decision-Making (ADM): Automated decision-making is the
process of making a decision by automated means without any human
involvement. These decisions can be based on factual data, as
well as on digitally created profiles or inferred data.
OETP Disclosure Format: A machine-readable Disclosure with
predefined structure, supplied in the JSON format.
Validation: A sequence of automated software-based checks to control
validity and security elements in the OETP Disclosure.
Auditor: A third-party legal person trusted to perform Verification
checks and to issue Verification Proofs.
Auditing software: An automated software-based tool authorized to
perform Verification checks and to issue Verification Proofs.
Verification: A procedure to control the correspondence of the
elements in the OETP Disclosure and the actual data processing and
data collection practices of the Vendors.
Verification Proof: A result of the formal Disclosure Verification
procedure presented to a requestor.
Chaining: A process of combining Disclosures of individual
Components into a composite high-level Disclosure for a Product.
Label: User-facing graphical illustrations and textual descriptions
of the Product that facilitate understanding of the values and
risks the Product carries.
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4. Protocol Model
The Disclosure creation and delivery consist of the two parts,
starting from (I) the submission of the Disclosure form, chaining of
the Suppliers' Disclosures, Signature of the disclosed information,
and the delivery part (II) that first checks that the Disclosure is
Valid, and then that the information specified in it is Verified by
the third-parties. Figure 4 shows disclosure creation steps.
4.1. Creation of Disclosure
The initial Disclosure is created by filling out a standardized
disclosure form (for example, see 1. https://openethics.ai/label/
(https://openethics.ai/label/)). A Vendor representative, a Product
Owner, or a Developer, MUST submit data-processing and data-
collection information about the Product. The information about the
end-point URL, as well as a contact email address, MUST be specified.
Disclosure MAY also be created in a fully automated way as a part of
the CI/CD DevOps pipeline. Figure 5 shows basic disclosure
submission process.
4.1.1. Cryptographic Signature
The Disclosure is organized into a predefined data schema and MUST be
cryptographically signed by the Signature Generator (Open Ethics or
federated providers) using standard SHA3-512 hash implementation.
The integrity hash MUST be appended to a disclosure as the
OETP.schema.integrity element.
4.1.2. Immutable Storage
Both the signature integrity hash and the Disclosure SHOULD be stored
in the log-centric root database and MAY be mirrored by other
distributed databases for redundancy and safety.
4.1.3. Visual Labeling
Open Ethics Label SHOULD be automatically generated by mirroring the
submitted Disclosure into a set of graphical icons and simple human-
readable descriptions. Additional Labels MAY be generated following
successful third-party Verification and by mapping the regulatory
requirements to Verified Disclosures.
4.2. Access to Disclosure
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4.2.1. Initial Request to a Disclosure file
The most recent OETP file SHOULD be stored in the root of the
Product's specified end-point URL, allowing requests to the OETP file
from third-party domains. When establishing a Vendor relationship,
the Integrator or a downstream Vendor MAY examine the Disclosure for
their Components using the following HTTP request: GET
https://testexample.com/oetp.json, where _testexample.com_ is the URL
of the Supplier's end-point.
4.2.2. Access to Visual Trust Labels
A Vendor SHOULD place a visual Label generated as a result of the
Disclosure process in the Product informational materials (for
example Marketing Materials, User Guides, Safety Instructions,
Privacy Policy, Terms of Service, etc). The Label reflects the
content of the Disclosure and SHOULD be displayed in any digital
media by embedding a software widget. Visual labels in the print
media SHOULD carry a visually distinguishable Integrity signature to
enable manual Validation by the User.
4.2.3. Requirements for placement of Integrity Signature in Visual
Label
* *Labels in the online digital media* MUST be generated
automatically based on the content of the Disclosure and MUST
contain a URL allowing to check the complete Integrity hash and
explore more detailed information about the Disclosure.
* *Labels in the offline media* MUST be generated automatically
based on the content of the Disclosure and should carry the first
10 digits of the corresponding Integrity hash.
4.2.4. Conformity assessment marks
Based on the Verification performed for the OETP Disclosure file, the
labels MAY include Conformity assessment marks, Certification marks,
as well as marks showing adherence to certain standards. These marks
MAY be generated and displayed automatically based on the
Verification Proofs.
4.2.5. Accessibility considerations
Accessibility of the Labels for the visually impaired Users SHOULD be
considered. The OETP Processing system MUST provide alternative
forms of the Label so that text-to-speech tools could be used to
narrate the Label without the lost of meaning.
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1) A Label MUST contain a title. Title could be either marked by the
aria-label attribute for the narration software or be labeled by
another content tag(s) present via aria-labelledby attribute,
pointing to the ID(s) describing the label content.
<!-- Open Ethics Label snippet: visible content -->
<a href="https://openethics.ai/label" target="_blank">
<div id="label" aria-label="Open Ethics Label">
<img src="/src/images/Open Ethics logo.svg" class="oesign svg" height="30" alt="Open Ethics Logo" role="img" aria-hidden="true">
<!-- Dynamic Content of the Open Ethics Label goes here -->
</div>
</a>
Figure 1: Example Label Snippet Content
2) Every icon that is present in the visual Label MUST contain a
title, describing the property illustrated by the icon. A more
extended description MAY be provided when necessary. The following
patterns are suggested:
* Pattern for images embedded using SVG tags: <img> + role="img" +
alt="[title text here]" OR <img> + role="img" + aria-label="[title
text here]"
* Pattern for images embedded using IMG tags: <svg> + role="img" +
<title> + <desc> + aria-labelledby="[ID]"
<svg width="16" height="16" viewBox="0 0 16 16" fill="none" xmlns="http://www.w3.org/2000/svg" role="img" aria-labelledby="iconOpenSourceCodeTitle iconOpenSourceCodeDescription">
<title id="iconOpenSourceCodeTitle">Algorithms and code libraries: Open Source Code</title>
<desc id="iconOpenSourceCodeDescription">This product/component has disclosed that it mainly uses the Open Source Code as a part of its codebase.</desc>
<circle cx="8" cy="8" r="7" fill="#FFFFFF" class="branding-accent" />
<path d="M10.56 4.83221C9.70667 4.08053 8.64 3.75839 7.46667 3.97315C5.44 4.18792 3.84 6.01342 3.84 8.16107V8.26845C3.84 8.37584 3.84 8.48322 3.84 8.5906C3.94666 9.98658 4.8 11.1678 6.08 11.9195C6.4 11.1678 6.61333 10.5235 6.82667 9.87919C6.18667 9.44966 5.86667 8.80537 5.86667 8.05369C5.86667 7.51678 6.08 7.08725 6.4 6.7651C7.14667 6.01342 8.21333 5.79866 9.06667 6.33557C9.81333 6.7651 10.1333 7.51678 10.1333 8.37584C10.0267 9.02013 9.70667 9.55704 9.17333 9.87919C9.38667 10.5235 9.70667 11.1678 9.92 11.9195C10.4533 11.5973 10.9867 11.1678 11.4133 10.6309C12.0533 9.77181 12.2667 8.69798 12.16 7.62416C12.0533 6.55033 11.52 5.47651 10.56 4.83221Z" fill="#333333" class="branding-main" />
<path d="M8 0C3.62667 0 0 3.54362 0 7.94631C0 12.349 3.62667 16 8 16C12.3733 16 16 12.4564 16 7.94631C16 3.43624 12.3733 0 8 0ZM9.92 12.8859C9.81333 12.8859 9.70667 12.9933 9.49333 12.8859C9.38667 12.8859 9.28 12.7785 9.17333 12.5638L8.10667 9.77181C8.10667 9.55705 8.21333 9.34228 8.42667 9.2349C8.85333 9.02013 9.06667 8.80537 9.17333 8.37584C9.17333 8.05369 9.17333 7.73154 8.96 7.51678C8.74667 7.19463 8.42667 6.97987 8.10667 6.97987C7.46667 6.97987 6.93333 7.30201 6.93333 7.94631C6.82667 8.48322 7.04 8.91275 7.57333 9.2349C7.89333 9.34228 8 9.55705 7.89333 9.87919L6.82667 12.6711C6.72 12.8859 6.61333 12.8859 6.61333 12.9933C6.61333 12.9933 6.50667 12.9933 6.4 12.9933C6.29333 12.9933 6.29333 12.9933 6.18667 12.9933C5.01333 12.5638 4.05333 11.7047 3.52 10.5235C2.98667 9.55705 2.88 8.80537 2.88 8.37584V8.26846C2.88 5.58389 4.8 3.43624 7.36 3.11409C10.1333 2.68456 12.5867 4.61745 13.12 7.30201C13.5467 9.66443 12.2667 12.0268 9.92 12.8859Z" fill="#333333" class="branding-main" />
</svg>
Figure 2: Example of the SVG icon with ARIA attributes for
Accessibility
4.3. Verification and Validation of Disclosure
4.3.1. Automated Disclosure processing
The automated Disclosure processing is enabled by requests to both
the Open Ethics Disclosure database powered by Disclosure Identity
Providers and the Product's OETP Disclosure file.
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To allow efficient decentralization and access to the disclosures of
autonomous systems, such as AI systems powered by trained machine
learning models, the vendor (or a developer) MUST send requests to a
Disclosure Identity Provider. Disclosures MAY be resolved using
URIs. To satisfy the mentioned requirements for disclosure RI, it is
proposed in [OETP-RI] to use the following formats:
* oetp://<hash> - Here integrity <hash> is the SHA3-512 generated
during the disclosure process.
* oetp://<component>@<alias>[:<disclosure>] - Here <component> is
the ID assigned via Disclosure Identity Provider under its <alias>
during the first disclosure.
* oetp://<domain>[:<disclosure>] - For verified domains (Domain
Validation), disclosure could be accessed using product's <domain>
instead of <component>@<alias>.)
4.3.2. Validation of Vendor's Disclosures
The OETP Processing system MUST compare integrity hashes in the Open
Ethics Disclosure database and entries that arrive as a result of the
Disclosure Request response.
4.3.3. Verification of Vendor's Disclosures
Every disclosure SHOULD be checked for the existence of the external
Verification from Auditors for the entire Disclosures or one of the
Disclosure elements.
4.3.4. Progressive Verification
To raise a level of trust in a Disclosure, a Vendor MAY decide to
opt-in for a third-party Disclosure Verification. OETP suggests a
Progressive Verification scheme where multiple independent external
Verification Proofs COULD be issued by third parties to confirm the
information specified in the Disclosure.
The Progressive Verification applies to a whole Disclosure, or to
specific elements of the Disclosure.
Figure 6 displays a general scheme for Disclosure requests and
responses.
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The following elements MAY serve as sources for various kinds of
Verification proofs: * Qualified Auditor reports * Qualified Vendor
of Auditing software tests * Certification Authority assessments *
Conformity assessments * User Feedback * Market Brokers * Real-time
Loggers
4.4. End-to-end transparency and formation of the composite Disclosure
The IT industry is getting more mature with Vendors becoming more
specialized. Surface-level transparency is not sufficient as supply
chains are becoming more complex and distributed across various
Components. The following steps MUST be satisfied for the end-to-end
transparency:
4.4.1. Open Supplier Policy
Every Integrator or a Vendor SHOULD disclose the information about
their Suppliers (sub-processing Vendors), indicating the scope of the
data processing in the Components they provide.
If the Supplier information is not provided, Disclosure SHOULD
contain information that a Vendor (Integrator) has not provided
Supplier information.
4.4.1.1. First-party Components
For greater transparency, Vendors may decide to reveal Components
even if they originate from themselves (first-party Components). For
the first-party Component, the Supplier identity information SHOULD
NOT be provided because it was already disclosed earlier.
Required: (Section 4.4.1.3.2) only
4.4.1.2. Third-party Components
When disclosing Components originating from the third-party Vendors
SHOULD provide both the Supplier identity information and Component
information
Required: (Section 4.4.1.3.1, Section 4.4.1.3.2)
4.4.1.3. Elements of Supplier disclosure
4.4.1.3.1. Supplier identity
* Vendor Name
* Vendor URL
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* Vendor ID
* Vendor DPO Contact Email
4.4.1.3.2. Component information
* Component Scope of use
* Personal Data Being Processed by Component
* Is a Safety Component (YES)/(NO)
* Component URL (if different from the Vendor URL)
* Component Disclosure URL (if different from the default Component
URL/oetp.json)
* Component DPO Contact (if different from Vendor DPO Contact Email)
4.4.2. Request for Supplier's Disclosures
The OETP Processing system MUST send GET requests to the URLs of each
Component to obtain their Disclosures. Based on the response to each
Disclosure request, the OETP Processing system MUST specify which
Components have Disclosures and which don't have Disclosures.
Figure 7 shows the process of how Disclosure Chaining requests and
responses happen.
4.4.3. Disclosure Chaining
The same Request-response operation applies recursively for
Components of the Components, for the Components of the Components of
the Components, etc. It is proposed to view the supply chain as a
tree-like hierarchical data structure, where the information about
Components is assembled using Level Order Tree Traversal algorithm.
In this tree: * Node is a structure that contains the Component's
Disclosure; * Root is the top Node representing a Product's
Disclosure information; * Edge is the connection between one Node and
another, representing the scope of the Data Processing by the
Component.
Figure 8 displays the order of the Disclosure Chaining with Level
Order Tree Traversal algorithm.
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4.4.4. Generation of the Composite Disclosure
The current consensus from the user & developer community suggests
that Composite Disclosure should follow The "Weakest Link" model.
According to this model, the risk that the Product is carrying should
not be considered any less than the risk for each of the Components.
A similar approach in dealing with software licenses has been
successful by allowing to generate Software Bills of Materials
(SBOMs) by providing package information in the [SPDX] files.
Formally this approach could be illustrated with the use of a
conjunction table for risk modeling (see Table 1). The Truth
Table for Logical AND operator below takes one risk factor and
evaluates risk outcomes as High (H) or Low (L) for hypothetical
Disclosure options of the Product(P) and its Component(C).
+=====================+=====================+=================+
| Disclosed risk of P | Disclosed risk of C | Composite P & C |
+=====================+=====================+=================+
| L | L | *L* |
+---------------------+---------------------+-----------------+
| L | H | *H* |
+---------------------+---------------------+-----------------+
| H | L | *H* |
+---------------------+---------------------+-----------------+
| H | H | *H* |
+---------------------+---------------------+-----------------+
Table 1: Conjunction Table for Risk Modeling
Further evaluation of this approach is required.
5. Example OETP Disclosure File
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{
"schema": {
"name": "Open Ethics Transparency Protocol",
"version": "0.9.3 RFC",
"integrity": "156d624b8f2dbea87128a2147f255842652475c5dc595c79f64c90c7ff486d59007c3e18c993e3163395812e26b70ea70dfc413f7ca128869d115f12e5699bf2"
},
"snapshot": {
"product": {
"url": "testexample.com",
"description": ""
},
"timestamp": 1608273946,
"generator": {
"name": "Open Ethics",
"alias": "oe",
"type": "root",
"website": "https://openethics.ai"
},
"label": {
"data": {
"type": "open",
"practice": ""
},
"source": {
"type": "open",
"practice": ""
},
"decision": {
"type": "restricted",
"practice": ""
}
}
}
}
Figure 3: Example OETP Disclosure File
6. Security Considerations
6.1. Response content
OETP exchanges data using JSON [RFC8259] which is a lightweight data-
interchange format. A JSON-based application can be attacked in
multiple ways such as sending data in an improper format or embedding
attack vectors in the data. It is important for any application
using JSON format to validate the inputs before being processed. To
mitigate this attack type, the JSON Key Profile is provided for OETP
responses.
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6.2. Spoofing
OETP Processors should be aware of the potential for spoofing attacks
where the attacker publishes an OETP disclosure with the
OETP.snapshot value from another product, or, perhaps with an
outdated OETP.snapshot.label element. For example, an OETP Processor
could suppress the display of falsified entries by comparing the
snapshot integrity from the submission database and a calculated hash
for the OETP.snapshot object. In that situation, the OETP Processor
might also take steps to determine whether the disclosures originated
from the same publisher require further investigation of the
Disclosure Feed and alert the downstream OETP Processors.
6.3. Falsification
Dishonest or falsified Disclosures is a problem that is hard to
address generally. The approach to it is public control and
systematic checks. Vendors or user-facing applications and services
could further raise the level of trust in their Disclosures by
implementing programmatic control scoring mechanisms, as well as the
external verification by trusted Auditors.
7. IANA Considerations
Disclosures MAY be resolved using their URIs. To allow this
requirement, the oetp:// URI scheme should be registered with IANA.
8. Areas for Future Study
The following topics not addressed in this version of the document
are possible areas for the future study:
* Extensibility of the OETP Disclosure Format.
* Evaluate other methods of Generation of the Composite Disclosure
based on the Disclosure Tree
* Disclosure Chaining mechanisms and various use-cases.
* Typical scenarios and templates for Disclosure submissions.
* Mapping of the regulatory requirements and future Disclosure
elements.
* Standardizing Privacy Disclosure and PII data-collection
practices.
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* Enhancing Label accessibility with ARIA W3C Recommendation and
other approaches.
* Use of the OETP Disclosure in the ADM explainability (XAI).
* Disclosure formats for families of "Generative AI" technologies
such as Generative Adversarial Networks (GANs), Variational
Autoencoders (VAEs), Conditional Variational Autoencoders (CVAEs),
Attention Mechanisms, Transformer-based Models.
9. References
9.1. Normative References
[RFC2119] Bradner, S., "Key words for use in RFCs to Indicate
Requirement Levels", BCP 14, RFC 2119,
DOI 10.17487/RFC2119, March 1997,
<https://www.rfc-editor.org/rfc/rfc2119>.
[RFC8174] Leiba, B., "Ambiguity of Uppercase vs Lowercase in RFC
2119 Key Words", BCP 14, RFC 8174, DOI 10.17487/RFC8174,
May 2017, <https://www.rfc-editor.org/rfc/rfc8174>.
9.2. Informative References
[OETP-RI] Open Ethics Initiative, "Resource Identifier Scheme for
OETP", 2022,
<https://github.com/OpenEthicsAI/OETP-RI-scheme>.
[RFC8259] Bray, T., Ed., "The JavaScript Object Notation (JSON) Data
Interchange Format", STD 90, RFC 8259,
DOI 10.17487/RFC8259, December 2017,
<https://www.rfc-editor.org/rfc/rfc8259>.
[SPDX] The Linux Foundation, "SPDX Specification – Version 2.2",
2020, <https://spdx.dev/>.
Appendix A. Appendix
A.1. Figures
Diagrams could be built from code using the below *.puml files
automatically using PlantUML (https://plantuml.com/).
A.1.1. Creation of Disclosure
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@startuml
title Disclosure Creation Process
skinparam roundCorner 15
actor "Supplier A" as SA
actor "Supplier B" as SB
actor Vendor as V
component "Component A" as CA
component "Component B" as CB
file "Disclosure A" as DA
file "Disclosure B" as DB
file "Composite Disclosure" as D
V-right->(Creation):disclose
SA-up->CA
SB-up->CB
CA-up->DA
CB-up->DB
DA-up->(Chaining)
DB-up->(Chaining)
(Creation)->(Chaining)
(Chaining)->(Validation)
(Validation)->(Verification)
(Verification)->D
@enduml
Figure 4: Creation of the Disclosure
A.1.2. Basic Disclosure Submission
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@startuml
title Basic Disclosure Submission
skinparam roundCorner 15
autonumber
actor Vendor
database "Disclosure Identity Provider" as ID
control "Signature Generator" as SIG
database "Federated Identity Provider" as DIS
Vendor -> ID: Request with Disclosure payload
ID -> ID: Validate input
ID -> SIG: Structured Data, Initialized
ID <-- SIG: SHA3-512 integrity hash
group Distributed Identity Storage
DIS <-- SIG: SHA3-512 integrity hash
end
ID -> ID: Log OETP file and a corresponding intgrity hash
Vendor <-- ID: OETP Disclosure File
@enduml
Figure 5: Basic Disclosure Submission
A.1.3. Progressive Verification Scheme for Disclosures
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@startuml
title Progressive Verification with multiple Auditors
skinparam roundCorner 15
autonumber
actor User
User -> Vendor: Disclosure Request
User <-- Vendor: OETP Disclosure File
database "Disclosure Identity Provider" as ID
User -> ID: Disclosure Validation and Verification Request
group Progressive Disclosure Verification
ID -> ID: Retrieve and Compare Disclosure Integrity
ID -> "Auditor 1": Disclosure Verification Request
ID <-- "Auditor 1": Verification Proof 1
ID -> "Auditor N": Disclosure Verification Request
ID <-- "Auditor N": Verification Proof N
end
User <-- ID: Verification response
User -> Vendor: Service Request
User <-- Vendor: Service Response
@enduml
Figure 6: Progressive Verification Scheme for Disclosures
A.1.4. Disclosure Chaining: Request-Response
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@startuml
title Disclosure Chaining: Request-Response
start
repeat
:Request Component's Disclosure;
if (Disclosure Obtained?) then (yes)
:Validate Disclosure;
:Verify Disclosure;
:Chain Disclosure;
:Obtain list of Child Components;
if (Supplier information exists?) then (yes)
:Update Tree with (yet)
Unchained Disclosures;
else (no)
#Gold:**Alert** "Vendor has not provided
Supplier information";
endif
else (no)
#pink:**Alert** "Vendor has not provided
any Disclosure";
stop
endif
repeat while (Unchained Disclosures in the Disclosure Tree?) is (yes) not (no)
:**Generate**
Composite Disclosure;
#palegreen:**Display** Label for "Composite Disclosure";
stop
@enduml
Figure 7: Disclosure Chaining: Request-Response
A.1.5. Disclosure Chaining: Level Order Traversal
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@startmindmap
title Disclosure Chaining: Level Order Traversal
skinparam roundCorner 15
* Root (Product)
* 1 (Component)
* 3 (Component)
* 7 (Component)
* 4 (Component)
* 2 (Component)
* 5 (Component)
* 8 (Component)
* 9 (Component)
* 6 (Component)
@endmindmap
Figure 8: Disclosure Chaining: Level Order Traversal
Acknowledgments
Part of this work related to Verification and Validation of
Disclosure and Disclosure Chaining was supported by the H2020
Programme of the European Commission under Article 15 of Grant
Agreement No. 951972 StandICT.eu 2023
The Open Ethics community and expert volunteers contributed with
their valuable feedback, discussions, and comments. Thank you Ashley
Duque Kienzle, Angela Kim, Ioannis Zempekakis, Karl Müdespacher, Ida
Varošanec, Claudia Del Pozo, Joerg Buss, Mariia Kriuchok, Minhaaj
Rehman, Oleksii Molchanovskyi, Roberta Barone, Phil Volkofsky and
others.
Author's Address
Nikita Lukainets
Open Ethics Initiative
Email: n.lukianets@openethics.ai
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