01 / Interoperate
Share, or ask without moving
A shared way for two platforms to exchange data, or to run a question against data that never leaves the community that holds it.
Common Ground · Open call
First Nations are building their own data platforms, one at a time. None of them can work together yet.
Protocol before product. Consent before architecture.
Common Ground is an open standard to change that: a shared way for sovereign platforms to exchange data, enforce each Nation's rules, and prove they follow them. OIATC is starting it now and inviting Nations, builders, and partners to help define it. This is a starting point for a shared effort, not a finished proposal.
- Status
- Open call, early draft
- Builds on
- CARE, OCAP, IEEE 2890
- Seeking
- Nations, builders, governance partners
- Published
- June 2026
01 · The gap
The principles exist. The way to enforce them across platforms does not.
The hard part is not deciding the rules. CARE and OCAP already set out who decides and on what terms. As of November 2025 there is also a first global technical standard, IEEE 2890, for recording where Indigenous data came from. These are real foundations, and Common Ground builds on them. It does not replace them.
What none of them provide is the next layer up. IEEE 2890 makes the description of data shareable, so two systems can read where data came from. It does not make one platform enforce another community's consent rules when data crosses between them, and it gives no way to certify that a platform actually does what it claims. That layer, enforcement across platforms and a way to prove conformance, is missing. No standard has claimed it.
The result is that every new sovereign platform risks becoming a sovereign silo. All built on the same mission, none able to safely connect, and no Nation able to verify that a tool it did not build can be trusted. Today every vendor self-asserts that it respects OCAP, and nobody can check.
02 · What the standard would do
Let platforms share, enforce each Nation's rules, and prove it.
Common Ground is a thin layer on top of what already exists. It does not rewrite CARE, OCAP, or IEEE 2890, and it does not reinvent the general machinery for sharing data between systems, which is already proven elsewhere. It binds those pieces into something a machine can act on and a Nation can verify. Three jobs.
02 / Enforce
Rules software follows
A community's permissions become rules that software follows. Consent, refusal, and the right to withdraw are honoured when data moves between platforms, not just written down on paper.
03 / Certify
Proof, not a sales pitch
A test any platform can be measured against, so a Nation can ask for proof of conformance instead of trusting a sales pitch.
03 · The principles this effort holds to
The standard is governed the way the data should be.
01
Indigenous-governed
Authority over the standard rests with Indigenous participants, not with any one company or platform. Vendors implement the standard. They do not own it.
02
Open and free to implement
No license fees, no gatekeeping, so cost is never a barrier for a small Nation or a small builder.
03
Distinctions-based
Designed to serve First Nations and to interoperate with Metis and Inuit efforts, never to absorb them. Each Nation is the authority over its own data.
04
Built on what exists
It aligns with CARE, OCAP, and IEEE 2890, and works with the people and bodies already doing this work rather than around them.
04 · Who this is for
It will take Nations, builders, and hard questions, not only engineers.
- First Nations, their councils and data staff, especially those standing up or planning their own data centres and platforms.
- Builders and platforms already working on sovereign Indigenous data and AI tools, including those who would implement and test the standard first.
- Organizations and networks holding governance expertise, including those connected to CARE, OCAP, IEEE 2890, and the regional data governance work underway across the country.
- Researchers and practitioners in Indigenous data governance, federated data, and AI safety.
You do not need to be a technical person to take part. Governance, lived community experience, and plain hard questions are as valuable as engineering.
05 · How to take part
Get in while the scope is still open.
This is the beginning. The first step is to gather the people who want to define this together, compare what each of us is already building, and agree on a first scope. The earlier you join, the more you shape.
If you want in, get in touch with OIATC. Tell us who you are, what you are building or governing, and what you would want a standard like this to protect.
One seat is held by the founder. Writing to Russell is writing to OIATC.