Identity Open Data
DraftA machine-readable representation of a profile: who a representative is, and how to check it.
Purpose
Identity Open Data is a machine-readable way to represent a profile, a person, organisation or AI, and the signed statements that make it up, so that any representative can read who someone is without depending on a single provider to say so.
Scope
Covers the shape of a profile (a controller, display name, headline, about text, self-published statements) and the identifiers a profile uses for discovery. It does not cover the custody of keys, or how an identity is minted: those are identity infrastructure, not the data standard.
Motivation
A profile locked inside one company's database only exists as long as that company does. Beautiful's own profile host is the first implementation of this idea (see Reference Implementations), but the standard exists so that no product, Beautiful's included, is the only place a profile can live.
Guiding principles
- A profile is composed of signed claims, not a single opaque record.
- Empty evidence means self-asserted. The standard never calls an unevidenced claim "verified".
- The standard describes the data, not the custody or hosting of the keys behind it.
Current status
Draft. Beautiful's profile host implements an early version of this shape today, the vocabulary is still settling and no versioned technical specification has been published.
Repository
Not yet published.
Discussion
Not yet open. A discussion venue will be announced alongside the first published specification.