Building a Dataspace: Technical Overview

A large amount of data is generated in today’s digitised world, but we cannot take full advantage of its value individually. Sharing data could fuel innovative data-driven applications, help to fulfil regulatory requirements, and generate monetary value. However, organisations hesitate to share their data for fear of losing control over who can access them and what they are used for. For data to be exchanged routinely among organisations, a collaborative environment—a so-called dataspace—is required in which participants can securely share and use data and related services, and where established technical and governmental standards ensure trust.

There are various initiatives developing software for dataspaces, but guidance on the capabilities, status, and usability of these available tools to implement dataspaces for specific purposes is lacking. The goal of this
whitepaper is to bridge the gap between high-level concepts and framework-specific technical documentation and provide an overview of the current technical landscape of dataspace components. Since progress in many dataspace-relevant projects is rapid, this document aims to offer guidelines that help the reader become accustomed to the common terminology, the current state of the art, and the existing software applications.