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Rationale

The Location Protocol exists to make structured, signed spatial data as easy to exchange as JSON, while preserving the values outlined in our Towards a Decentralized Geospatial Web vision paper:

PrincipleWhat it means for the spec
OpenThe format is public‑domain, royalty‑free, and extends existing geospatial conventions (EPSG, GeoJSON, MIME) so any toolchain—GIS desktop, smart‑contract, metaverse engine—can implement it without permission.
DurableEach record carries cryptographic guarantees: deterministic canonicalisation → hash integrity, detached or on‑chain signatures → non‑repudiation, explicit specVersion + registries → long‑term machine interoperability. Additionally, records can be stored on blockchains or other durable storage systems.
Opt‑inAttestations are user-controlled: users decide what to disclose, when, and to whom. This enables selective disclosure, revocation, and provenance chaining. Zero-knowledge techniques—e.g. proving inclusion within a region without revealing coordinates—are a natural extension and under active development.

Adhering to open standards for structured spatial data (CRS URNs, CBOR, multiformats) unlocks cross‑domain pipelines: a drone image hash proven onchain can be validated by a Python notebook; a metaverse waypoint can reference an on‑Earth bounding box in the same graph.

Minimum requirements for a Location Attestation​

  1. Well‑defined structure — conforms exactly to the Normative Data Model (field names, order, and types are fixed).
  2. Self‑describing location encoding — locationType tells any parser how to interpret location, whether that’s a GeoJSON polygon or a CID pointing to a GeoTIFF tile.
  3. Reference system declaration — srs (EPSG/URN or custom namespace) specifies the coordinate frame or symbolic space.
  4. Cryptographic authenticity — verifiable via either an on‑chain transaction (OnChainTxProof) or a detached signature set (DetachedSig).
  5. Immutable integrity hash — canonical CBOR serialisation ensures the same byte‑sequence and hash across languages and runtimes.
  6. Version signalling — specVersion allows graceful evolution without breaking old clients.
  7. Optional expiry & revocation hooks — expirationTime and revocable enable privacy‑oriented or limited‑lifetime attestations.
  8. Provenance links — the ref field lets any attestation cite its parent or prerequisite proofs, forming verifiable chains (e.g., sensor‑reading → analytics result).

By meeting these requirements, a Location Attestation becomes a durable, portable, and user‑centric spatial proof that can flow between blockchains, Web 2 APIs, and traditional GIS software—fulfilling the protocol’s ambition to be the missing location primitive for an open and consensual internet.