THE RECORD
SECTION 06
ISSUE 001
Data Provenance Becomes Executable
Projection: W3C PROV already supplies an interoperable provenance model, and Data on the Web guidance recommends machine-readable publication. AI records can build on that substrate to encode origin, transformation, consent, license, and revocation. The idea is confirmed only when downstream systems can enforce those fields, not merely display them.
Why this idea is here
What the evidence establishes.
W3C PROV already defines an interoperable model and ontology for machine-readable provenance, while the W3C Data on the Web Best Practices recommend publishing provenance in machine-readable form. Those standards directly establish the executable substrate; applying it to AI consent, licensing, transformation and revocation remains the inference.
Source ledger
Read the sources.
- S01PROV-O: The PROV Ontology
W3C recommendation / published 2013-04-30 / retrieved 2026-07-09
- S02Data on the Web Best Practices
W3C recommendation / published 2017-01-31 / retrieved 2026-07-09