How do data vaults work?

Every piece of data created by a person
or about them, is stored in a data vault.

A person can grant services access
to very specific parts of their data.

Separating app and storage competition
creates better offerings for all parties.

By abandoning data harvesting,
we restore permissionless innovation.

Solid enables interoperable data vaults
through standardization.

• Solid builds on existing Web standards.
• The standards cover:
  • data pods
  • applications or services
  • identity (authentication and authorization)
• Solid specifies the interactions
  between data, apps, and identities.

Solid servers separate apps from data
by implementing a set of specifications.

• Think of a data pod as a USB stick.
  • connector shape
  • electrical signals
  • file system format
  • …
• The Solid specifications ensure that
  data can be accessed by any Solid app
  regardless of the server it’s stored on.

All Solid servers must implement the spec,
yet that doesn’t make them all the same.

• All USB sticks behave the same, but variations exist.
  • different storage capacity
  • different sizes and colors
  • different security mechanisms
  • …
• Similarly, there are many ways to implement
  a compatible server of Solid data pods.
  • Use cases inform the need for pods.