P3P Base Data Set

W3C Working Draft 7 April 1999

This Version: http://www.w3.org/TR/1999/WD-P3P-19990407/basedata.html
Latest Version:: http://www.w3.org/TR/WD-P3P/basedata.html
Previous Version:: http://www.w3.org/TR/1998/WD-P3P-19981109/basedata.html
Editor:: Massimo Marchiori, W3C, (massimo@w3.org)

Abstract

This document, part of the P3P specification, specifies the names of base P3P data elements, sets, and their data types.

Status of This Document

This is a subspecification of the P3P specification for review by W3C members and other interested parties. This document has been produced as part of the P3P Activity, and will eventually be advanced toward W3C Recommendation status. It is inappropriate to use W3C Working Drafts as reference material or to cite them as other than "work in progress." The underlying concepts of the draft are fairly stable and we encourage the development of experimental implementations and prototypes so as to provide feedback on the specification. However, this Working Group will not allow early implementations to affect their ability to make changes to future versions of this document.

This draft document will be considered by W3C and its members according to W3C process. This document is made public for the purpose of receiving comments that inform the W3C membership and staff on issues likely to affect the implementation, acceptance, and adoption of P3P.

Send comments to www-p3p-public-comments@w3.org (archived at http://lists.w3.org/Archives/Public/www-p3p-public-comments/).

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Required Base Data Elements and Sets
1. HTTP Fields
2. User Data
Data Types
Abstract Elements
The Data Schema
Appendix: References

1. Required (Base) Data Elements and Sets

The following are the base data elements and sets. These data elements and sets (as named) may not be modified or deleted by either the service or the user agent. However the user can provide any arbitrary value. For instance the agent may return no value or a value that differs depending on the active persona. We expect that in the future, there will be demand for the creation of other data sets and elements. Obvious applications include catalogue, payment, and agent/system attribute schemas.

Each table below specifies a set, the elements within the set, the category associated with the element, its type, and the display name shown to users. More than one category may be associated with an element. However, we have designed the base categories such that the base elements do no overlap or belong to more than one category when possible. We recommend that data schema designers do the same.

1.1 HTTP Fields

The HTTP. data set includes elements from the HTTP protocol fields.

HTTP.	Category	Type	Short display name
HTTP.Referrer	Navigation and Click-stream Data	URI	Where the user were last

HTTP.Referrer is used by a service to request the HTTP referrer field. Note that HTTP agents could discontinue sending the Referrer in the HTTP headers, forcing services to specifically ask for it under P3P control. Note, this data element does not control what happens in the HTTP headers.

Note another element in the HTTP. data set is present (namely, HTTP.Log_). Being an abstract element, it is explained in Section 3.

1.2 User Data

The User. data set includes general information about the user.

User.	Category	Type	Short display name
Name.	Physical Contact Information, Demographic and SocioEconomic Data	PersonName.	User's Name
Bdate.	Demographic and SocioEconomic Data	Date.	User's Birth Date
Cert	Unique Identifiers	Text	User's Identity Certificate
Gender	Demographic and SocioEconomic Data	Gender	User's Gender
Employer	Demographic and SocioEconomic Data	Text	User's Employer
Department	Demographic and SocioEconomic Data	Text	Department or division of organization where user is employed
JobTitle	Demographic and SocioEconomic Data	Text	User's Job Title
Home.	Physical Contact Information, Online Contact Information, Demographic and SocioEconomic Data	Contact.	User's Home Contact Information
Business.	Physical Contact Information, Online Contact Information, Demographic and SocioEconomic Data	Contact.	User's Business Contact Information
BillTo.	Physical Contact Information, Online Contact Information, Demographic and SocioEconomic Data	Contact.	User's Billing Address
ShipTo.	Physical Contact Information, Online Contact Information, Demographic and SocioEconomic Data	Contact.	User's Shipping Address

Note, that this data set includes elements that are actually sets of data themselves. These sets are defined in the data types subsection of this document. The short display name for an individual element contained within a data set is defined as the concatenation of the short display names that have been defined for the set and the element, separated by commas. For example, the short display name for User.Home.Postal.PostalCode would be "User's Home Contact Information, Postal Address Information, Postal Code". User agent implementations may prefer to develop their own short display names rather than using the concatenated names when prompting users for information.

2. Data Types

2.1 Dates

The Date. type is a structured type that specifies a date.

Date.	Category	Type	Short display name
Year	Demographic and SocioEconomic Data	Number	Year
Month	Demographic and SocioEconomic Data	Number	Month
Day	Demographic and SocioEconomic Data	Number	Day
Hour	Demographic and SocioEconomic Data	Number	Hour
Minute	Demographic and SocioEconomic Data	Number	Minute
Second	Demographic and SocioEconomic Data	Number	Second
FractionSecond	Demographic and SocioEconomic Data	Number	Fraction of Second
TimeZone	Demographic and SocioEconomic Data	Text	Time Zone

All the fields in the Date. type correspond to those in the most informative profile of the time standard ISO8601.

2.2 Names

The PersonName. type is a structured type that specifies information about the naming of a person.

PersonName.	Category	Type	Short display name
Prefix	Demographic and SocioEconomic Data	Text	Name Prefix
First	Physical Contact Information	Text	First Name
Last	Physical Contact Information	Text	Last Name
Middle	Physical Contact Information	Text	Middle Name
Suffix	Demographic and SocioEconomic Data	Text	Name Suffix
Formatted	Physical Contact Information, Demographic and SocioEconomic Data	Text	Formatted Name
Nickname	Demographic and SocioEconomic Data	Text	Nickname

2.3 Telephones

The PhoneNum. type is a structured type that specifies the characteristics of a phone number.

PhoneNum.	Category	Type	Short display name
IntCode	Physical Contact Information	Number	International Phone Code
LocCode	Physical Contact Information	Number	Local Phone Area Code
Number	Physical Contact Information	Number	Phone Number
Ext	Physical Contact Information	Number	Phone Extension
Comment	Physical Contact Information	Text	Phone Optional Comments

2.4 Contact Information

The Contact. type is a structured, redirected, type to other types. This is done so that requests for data need not collect information they do not need even if they wish to use the abbreviate set notation in a request.

Contact.	Category	Type	Short display name
Postal.	Physical Contact Information, Demographic and SocioEconomic Data	Postal.	Postal Address Information
Telecom.	Physical Contact Information	Telecom.	Telecommunications Information
Online.	Online Contact Information	Online.	Online Address Information

2.4.1 Postal

The Postal. type is a structured type that specifies a postal mailing address.

Postal.	Category	Type	Short display name
Name.	Physical Contact Information, Demographic and SocioEconomic Data	PersonName.	Name
Street	Physical Contact Information	Text	Street Address
City	Physical Contact Information	Text	City
StateProv	Physical Contact Information	Text	State or Province
PostalCode	Demographic and SocioEconomic Data	Text	Postal Code
CountryCode	Demographic and SocioEconomic Data	Country	Country Code
Country	Demographic and SocioEconomic Data	Text	Country Name
Formatted	Demographic and SocioEconomic Data	Text	Formatted Postal Address

2.4.2 Telecommunication

The Telecom. type is a structured type that specifies telecommunication information about a person.

Telecom.	Category	Type	Short display name
Phone	Physical Contact Information	PhoneNum.	Phone Number
Fax	Physical Contact Information	PhoneNum.	Fax Number
Mobile	Physical Contact Information	PhoneNum.	Mobile Phone Number
Pager	Physical Contact Information	PhoneNum.	Pager Number

2.4.3 Online

The Online. type is a structured type that specifies online information about a person.

Online.	Category	Type	Short display name
Email	Online Contact Information	Text	Email Address
URI	Online Contact Information	URI	Home Page Address

2.5 Primitive Data Types

This specification uses the following primitive data element datatypes, we reference specifications in keeping with [XML1.0], [HTTP1.1], and [XML-Data] as ordered.

Primitive DataType	Definition
Text	[UTF-8]
Gender	"M" or "F".
Boolean	"0" or "1".
Binary	Base64 per RFC-1531. [[MIME]]
Number	Text composed with the digits "0", "1", "2", "3", "4", "5", "6", "7", "8", "9".
Country	[ISO3166]
URI	[URI]

3 Abstract Elements

In some cases, there is a need to specify data elements that do not have associated data values (e.g., when a service wishes to declare it keeps HTTP logs) We call such special elements abstract. When abstract elements appear within the same statement as other elements, this asserts that non-enumerated data is collected in addition to the specified elements. Abstract elements are syntactically distinguished by the fact their name ends with an underscore "_".

The abstract elements below allow a service to declare the collection of data by means other than a request for a specific P3P data element and P3P transfer.

	Category	Type	Short display name
ClickStream.Client_	Navigation and Click-stream Data, *	Boolean	Click-stream collected on the client
ClickStream.Server_	Navigation and Click-stream Data, *	Boolean	Click-stream collected on the server
Cookies_	*	Boolean	Cookies are processed (read/write)
HTTP.Log_	Computer Information	Boolean	Server stores the HTTP Logs
Form.Data_	*	Boolean	Data entered through forms
Form.SearchText_	InteractiveData	Boolean	Search terms

The "*" in the category means multiple categories could apply. For instance, "Navigation and Click-stream Data, *" means that at least the "Navigational Data" category as defined by the Vocabulary applies, but perhaps other categories as well (for example, they use the information to derive a users' food preferences from browsing a Cookbook site.)

These elements are often implicit in navigation or Web interactions. They should be used with categories to describe the type of information collected through these methods. "Form.Data_" references information not enumerated with a specific data element by which are collected by the service, such as through HTML forms or Java(script) interfaces. (Note, this is different from the source attribute which states the way in which the user should be prompted.) "Form.SearchText_" is a specific type of form solicitation used for searching and indexing sites. Consequently, if the only form fields on a search engine page are search fields, it need only disclose that data element.

4. The Data Schema

In the following, we show the data schema corresponding to the P3P base data set.

5. Appendix: References (Normative).

[HTTP1.1]: R. Fielding, J. Gettys, J.C. Mogul, H. Frystyk, T. Berners-Lee, "RFC2068 -- Hypertext Transfer Protocol -- HTTP/1.1," UC Irvine, Digital Equipment Corporation, MIT.
[ISO3166]: "ISO3166: Codes for The Representation of Names of Countries." International Organization for Standardization.
[MIME]: N. Freed, N. Borenstein. "MIME (Multipurpose Internet Mail Extensions) Part One: Mechanisms for Specifying and Describing the Format of Internet Message Bodies." November 1996.
[SYNTAX]: M. Marchiori (Ed.). "P3P Syntax Specification." World Wide Web Consortium, Working Draft. 8 Februay 1999.
[URI]: T. Berners-Lee, R. Fielding, and L. Masinter. "Uniform Resource Identifiers (URI): Generic Syntax and Semantics." 1997. (Work in progress; see updates to RFC1738.)
[UTF-8]: F. Yergeau. "RFC2279 -- UTF-8, a transformation format of ISO 10646." January 1998.
[VCARD]: "vCard - The Electronic Business Card Version 2.1." Internet Mail Consortium, September 18, 1996.
[XML]: T. Bray, J. Paoli, C. M. Sperberg-McQueen. "Extensible Markup Language (XML) 1.0 Specification." World Wide Web Consortium, Recommendation. 10 February 1998.
[XML-Data]: A. Layman et al. "XML-Data." World Wide Web Consortium, Note. 05-January-1998.