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Data Layer

Establishing the Canonical Foundation for Clause Execution, Credential Integrity, and Cross-System Trust

2.1.1 Purpose of the Data Layer

The Data Layer in NSF underpins all clause logic, credential issuance, simulation input, and audit integrity. Its design solves three foundational problems:

  1. Where and how verifiable governance data is stored

  2. How data provenance is guaranteed, especially for machine inputs

  3. How institutions, agents, and nodes access authoritative state consistently across distributed systems

Unlike generic blockchains or cloud databases, the NSF Data Layer is engineered for policy-enforceable, privacy-compliant, jurisdiction-aware, cryptographically provable data flows that serve governance—not just transactions.

2.1.2 Data Types Governed in NSF

Data Type

Role in NSF

Structured Sensor Input

EO, IoT, weather, air quality, satellite feeds for clause execution

Credential State

VC issuance metadata, revocation status, subject DID bindings

Simulation Input

Time-series, economic, demographic, and environmental data for foresight

Clause Source Data

Legal or policy documents transformed into Smart Clause logic

CAC Records

Execution outputs from TEEs or ZK circuits

Governance Logs

Voting records, proposal metadata, DAO actions

Metadata Graphs

Jurisdictional tags, clause-to-clause dependencies, lineage trees

These are structured, signed, and stored for both short-term execution and long-term institutional memory.

2.1.3 Storage Model: Distributed, Sovereign, Redundant

NSF supports modular backend configurations, including:

  • On-premise sovereign deployments (ministries, UN agencies, regulators)

  • IPFS-style decentralized object stores for clauses and metadata

  • Cloud-compatible node replication across trusted data centers

  • Archival anchors to third-party networks (e.g., Filecoin, Arweave, institutional repositories)

  • Hybrid data sharding between simulation-heavy datasets and lightweight mobile runtimes

Storage is append-only, hash-indexed, and access-controlled via verifiable credentials. No node is required to store all data. Sharding policies can be set by:

  • Domain (e.g., health vs transport)

  • Jurisdiction (e.g., African Union vs EU)

  • Sensitivity (e.g., public, quorum-gated, TEE-access only)

2.1.4 Provenance: Canonical Hash Anchoring and Traceability

Every data object—whether input or output—is:

  • Signed at source (e.g., by sensor firmware, DAO node, credential issuer)

  • Hashed and time-stamped

  • Linked to clause ID, jurisdiction, and purpose metadata

  • Stored with cryptographically signed provenance metadata bundles (PMBs)

Provenance logs define:

  • Who generated the data

  • What conditions or devices were involved

  • Whether the data was modified or preprocessed

  • Whether it was simulated, attested, or directly executed upon

This prevents data forgery, duplication, or misuse in high-trust systems like disaster response, medical credentialing, or treaty monitoring.

2.1.5 Availability and Access Controls

The Data Layer uses DID-anchored access policies:

  • Users, machines, and institutions must hold verifiable credentials to read/write sensitive data

  • Clause execution environments (TEEs, agents, oracles) request data via privilege-aware RPC interfaces

  • Certain data objects (e.g., satellite feeds, CAC logs) are globally accessible, while others (e.g., biometric credentials, restricted simulations) are governance-gated

Availability logic ensures:

  • Redundancy across trust zones

  • Latency-optimized edge distribution for response-critical systems

  • Audit logging of access attempts, linked to DID, clause, and jurisdiction

2.1.6 Machine-Readable and Clause-Aware Indexing

All data objects are:

  • Tagged with clause compatibility metadata (e.g., usableWith: ISO-TraceabilityClause@v2)

  • Indexed by jurisdiction, schema, and temporal scope

  • Associated with semantic identifiers for search and cross-system queries

This enables clause execution engines to:

  • Automatically validate input eligibility

  • Reject untrusted or misaligned data

  • Search for historical precedents or similar simulations

  • Retrieve “clause-ready” datasets by domain

2.1.7 Interoperability and Format Standards

NSF supports and extends:

  • JSON-LD for linked data

  • W3C Verifiable Credentials for credential states

  • GeoTIFF, NetCDF, CSV, and Parquet for climate and EO data

  • AuditLog and OpenTelemetry-compatible tracing for runtime visibility

  • FAIR principles (Findable, Accessible, Interoperable, Reusable) across scientific domains

NSF nodes can import/export datasets to ISO, ICAO, WHO, and UN registries using wrapper protocols, enabling co-validation without reimplementation.

2.1.8 Data Deletion, Retention, and Sovereignty Logic

All data is governed by clause-defined retention and deletion policies:

  • Some data (e.g., public clause trees, governance logs) are permanent

  • Other data (e.g., biometrics, sensitive health records) are ephemeral and subject to revocation or jurisdictional deletion triggers

  • Deletion is cryptographically provable and logged with revocation attestations

Sovereigns may host Data Layer shards restricted to local policy, ensuring:

  • Data never leaves jurisdictional boundaries unless explicitly permitted

  • Zero-trust assumptions apply across infrastructure providers

  • Clause execution references remain valid even if data is purged (via CAC immutability)

2.1.9 Zero-Knowledge Availability Proofs

For privacy-preserving environments (e.g., refugee credentialing, sanctions compliance, climate-sensitive investment):

  • NSF supports Zero-Knowledge Proofs of Data Availability (zkDAP)

  • Allows proving that clause execution used legitimate input without revealing the input

  • Examples:

    • An LLM verifying medical device compliance across countries without accessing patient data

    • A smart contract triggering a risk payout after validating remote sensing inputs without disclosing full satellite imagery

These ZK proofs are linked to CACs and stored as bundled attestations.

2.1.10 NSF Data Layer: Summary and Role

The Data Layer enables:

  • Tamper-proof execution inputs

  • Verifiable lineage of every decision and credential

  • Distributed, sovereign, privacy-aware storage

  • Semantic, clause-linked, and jurisdiction-specific indexing

  • Cross-jurisdiction simulation readiness and data mobility

Without a cryptographically provable, machine-compatible, and governance-controlled data foundation, no clause can execute, no credential can be issued, and no trust layer can scale.

The Data Layer is where policy intent becomes data-ready governance reality.

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