OASIS Open, a global open-source and standards organisation, and the Data & Trust Alliance, a consortium focused on responsible data and AI practices, have announced the formation of the OASIS Data Provenance Standards Technical Committee (DPS TC).

The committee will build upon version 1.0.0 of the Data Provenance Standards developed by the Data & Trust Alliance's cross-industry Working Group, expanding industry participation to establish formal technical standards for data transparency, accountability, and trust. Founding sponsors include Cisco, IBM, Intel, Microsoft, and Red Hat.

As AI adoption accelerates, organisations face increasing challenges in verifying data sources, ensuring compliance, and maintaining data integrity. The DPS TC aims to create a standardised metadata framework that tracks data lineage, transformations, and compliance across various platforms. This initiative will help organisations improve governance practices, mitigate risks related to data privacy and intellectual property, and enhance transparency in AI-driven applications.

The committee's work will focus on:

• Standardised data lineage tracking:Establishing clear and consistent methods for documenting data origins and transformations.
• Compliance and risk management:Supporting organisations in meeting regulatory and ethical standards for data use.
• Interoperability across platforms:Ensuring metadata models can be applied consistently across different databases, tables, and data pipelines.
• Transparency for data users:Providing businesses and individuals with visibility into how data is sourced and managed.

IBM has already tested an early version of the standards, integrating them into its governance framework. According to Christina Montgomery, Chief Privacy and Trust Officer at IBM, this resulted in measurable improvements in data diligence and management processes.

The DPS TC will hold its first meeting on 8 April 2025, with participation open to organisations, industry leaders, and experts through OASIS membership. The committee aims to refine existing standards and develop implementation tools, with a goal of introducing broadly applicable metadata quality metrics within the next 12 to 18 months.

For more information on these topics, visit diplomacy.edu.