# Principles & Standards

## Policy

Numbers Protocol hopes to create an open, transparent and traceable data ecosystem. This means our solution must

1. improve people live while preserving the privacy
2. be transparent and inclusive
3. digitally robust, and
4. leverage existing standards.

### Human-centric solution

Being human-centered means designing solutions that empower individuals. Meeting the requirement of the \[General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) is at the heart of our approach and we aim at providing privacy-by-design and privacy-by-default solutions\[1].

## Open source

Open Source Software (OSS) refers to a software project that has source code that is publicly available to be viewed and modified by third parties. Open source core principles are freedom, transparency, no discrimination, and community and peer-reviewing. The idea of Open Source is not a new one as much of today’s internet is powered by OSS.

There are numerous technical and business benefits for OSS, some of which include reliability, security, quality, performance, developer & test base, cost, and flexibility. With these factors in consideration, adopting the OSS model is an appropriate course of action.

### OpenChain

Numbers Protocol embraces the Open Source principles and trusts an Open-source approach improves our society in different ways, such as empowering individuals with freedoms, inclusivity, or fostering innovation.

To that end, Numbers has been certified by OpenChain 2.0/ISO 5230 in 2020 to indicate our open source compliance and resolve to adopt OSS friendly licenses such as MIT License and GPL-3.0 or later.

### Contribution mechanic

One of the main bottlenecks of OSS contribution is the legal terms that come with commercial products. Traditionally, Contributor License Agreements (CLA) is the industry standard for open source contributions, however, its contractual nature discourages contribution from some developers who find entering legal terms and reviewing contracts restrictive.

To streamline contributions to Numbers projects, Developer Certificate of Origin (DCO) will be the adopted contribution mechanic. Contributors to OSS under DCO will certify that they have the right to submit the code they are contributing. This mechanic is easily added to the Git workflow and developers will be credited for their contributions.

## Other Standards

### Content authenticity

The solution will fit within existing and developing data standards such as long-standing [Extensible Metadata Platform (XMP)](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/XMP), [Content Authenticity Initiative (CAI)](https://contentauthenticity.org/) and [the Coalition for Content Provenance and Authenticity (C2PA)](https://c2pa.org/). Additional existing technology frameworks include Secure Socket Layer (SSL).

### Digital security

Numbers is ISO27001 certified, an international standard-setting requirement for establishing, implementing, maintaining and continually improving information security management systems. Appropriate digital security is mandatory to preserve data integrity. Being ISO27001 will confirm our compliance with high digital security standards.

\[1] Article 25, GDPR (2016/679 ) of 27 April 2016.
