An Architecture for Trustworthy Open Data Services

This paper addresses the development of trust in the use of Open Data through incorporation of appropriate authentication and integrity parameters for use by end user Open Data application developers in an architecture for trustworthy Open Data Services.The advantages of this architecture scheme is that it is far more scalable, not another certificate authority hierarchy with massive dispersion of key certificates which has of late become too widespread and unmanageable. With the use of a Public Key File, if the key is compromised; it is a simple matter of the single responsible entity replacing the key pair with a new one and re-performing the data file signing process. Responsibility for Open Data is separated from any other certificate authority that might be used by the publishing entity. Under this proposed architecture, the Open Data environment does not interfere with the internal security schemes that might be employed by the entity. However, this architecture incorporates, when needed, parameters from the entity, e.g. person who authorized publishing as Open Data, at the time that datasets are created/added.