The Atlas
40 terms across digital identity, data protection, AI governance, and cybersecurity — the reference the Observatory uses.
Browse 40 terms across 11 categories. Use your browser's search (Cmd+F / Ctrl+F) to find specific terms.
Categories
Digital Identity
Decentralized Identity (DID)
A portable, user-controlled identity that doesn't rely on a centralized registry, identity provider, or certificate authority. DIDs enable verifiable, self-sovereign digital identities.
Self-Sovereign Identity (SSI)
A model for managing digital identities where individuals or organizations have sole ownership and control of their digital and analog identities without relying on third-party service providers.
HD Wallet (Hierarchical Deterministic Wallet)
A cryptocurrency wallet that generates all of its keys and addresses from a single master seed using a hierarchical tree structure, allowing for organized key management and easy backup via a mnemonic phrase.
Mnemonic Phrase (Seed Phrase)
A list of words (typically 12 or 24) that store all the information needed to recover a cryptocurrency wallet. It serves as a human-readable backup of the wallet's private keys.
Cryptography
Zero-Knowledge Proof (ZKP)
A cryptographic method where one party can prove to another that a statement is true without revealing any information beyond the validity of the statement itself.
Merkle Tree
A data structure used in blockchain to efficiently and securely verify the integrity of large sets of data. Each leaf node represents a hash of data, and each non-leaf node is a hash of its children.
Privacy
Data Minimization
The principle that personal data collected and processed should be limited to what is directly relevant and necessary to accomplish a specified purpose.
Privacy by Design
An approach to systems engineering which takes privacy into account throughout the whole engineering process, embedding privacy into the design and operation of IT systems and business practices.
Privacy Rights
Right to be Forgotten
Also known as the right to erasure, it enables individuals to request deletion or removal of personal data from Internet searches and other directories under specific circumstances.
Blockchain
Smart Contract
Self-executing contracts with the terms directly written into code, automatically enforcing and executing the agreement when predetermined conditions are met.
Distributed Ledger Technology (DLT)
A consensus of replicated, shared, and synchronized digital data geographically spread across multiple sites, countries, or institutions without centralized data storage or administration.
Ethereum
A decentralized, open-source blockchain platform that enables smart contracts and decentralized applications (dApps) to be built and run without downtime, fraud, control, or interference from a third party.
Gas Fee
The fee required to successfully conduct a transaction or execute a smart contract on the Ethereum blockchain, measured in Gwei and paid in Ether, compensating validators for the computational energy required.
DeFi (Decentralized Finance)
A blockchain-based form of finance that does not rely on central financial intermediaries such as brokerages, exchanges, or banks. Instead, it utilizes smart contracts on blockchains, primarily Ethereum.
DAO (Decentralized Autonomous Organization)
An organization represented by rules encoded as a computer program that is transparent, controlled by the organization members, and not influenced by a central government or entity.
NFT (Non-Fungible Token)
A unique digital identifier recorded on a blockchain that certifies ownership and authenticity of a specific digital or physical asset. Based on the ERC-721 standard on Ethereum.
Ethereum Virtual Machine (EVM)
The runtime environment for smart contracts in Ethereum. It is a Turing-complete virtual machine that allows anyone to execute arbitrary code on the Ethereum network.
Solidity
A statically-typed programming language designed for developing smart contracts that run on the Ethereum Virtual Machine (EVM). It is influenced by C++, Python, and JavaScript.
Consensus Mechanism
A fault-tolerant mechanism used in blockchain systems to achieve agreement on a single data value or state of the network among distributed processes or systems, such as Proof-of-Work or Proof-of-Stake.
Proof-of-Stake (PoS)
A consensus mechanism where validators are chosen to create new blocks based on the amount of cryptocurrency they hold and are willing to 'stake' as collateral, offering improved energy efficiency over Proof-of-Work.
Liquidity Pool
A collection of funds locked in a smart contract used to facilitate decentralized trading, lending, and other functions in DeFi protocols. Users who provide liquidity earn fees from trades.
Yield Farming
The practice of staking or locking up cryptocurrencies in DeFi protocols to generate returns or rewards, typically in the form of additional cryptocurrency. Also known as liquidity mining.
Oracle
A third-party service that provides smart contracts with external information from outside the blockchain, enabling them to interact with real-world data such as price feeds, weather data, or event outcomes.
Stablecoin
A cryptocurrency designed to minimize price volatility by being pegged to a stable asset such as the US dollar, gold, or other cryptocurrencies. Examples include USDC, USDT, and DAI.
Governance Token
A token that grants holders the right to vote on decisions that influence a protocol or DAO, such as parameter changes, treasury allocation, or protocol upgrades.
Security
Multi-Factor Authentication (MFA)
A security system that requires more than one method of authentication from independent categories of credentials to verify a user's identity for login or other transaction.
End-to-End Encryption (E2EE)
A system of communication where only the communicating users can read the messages, preventing third parties including service providers from accessing encryption keys needed to decrypt the conversation.
Attack Surface
The total sum of vulnerabilities, pathways, or methods that can be exploited to carry out a security attack, including all points where an unauthorized user can try to enter or extract data.
Compliance
Data Protection Impact Assessment (DPIA)
A process designed to identify risks arising out of the processing of personal data and to minimize these risks as far and as early as possible, required for high-risk processing under GDPR.
Data Controller
The natural or legal person, public authority, agency or other body which, alone or jointly with others, determines the purposes and means of the processing of personal data.
Lawful Basis
The legal justification required under GDPR for processing personal data, including consent, contract, legal obligation, vital interests, public task, or legitimate interests.
KYC (Know Your Customer)
The process of verifying the identity of clients by financial institutions and regulated companies to prevent fraud, money laundering, and terrorist financing. Increasingly applied in cryptocurrency exchanges.
AML (Anti-Money Laundering)
A set of laws, regulations, and procedures intended to prevent criminals from disguising illegally obtained funds as legitimate income. Applied to traditional finance and increasingly to cryptocurrency.
AI Ethics
Algorithmic Transparency
The principle that the factors that influence the decisions made by algorithms should be visible and understandable to the people affected by the algorithmic decisions.
Privacy Technology
Differential Privacy
A system for publicly sharing information about a dataset by describing patterns within the data while withholding information about individuals in the dataset.
AI Technology
Federated Learning
A machine learning technique that trains algorithms across multiple decentralized devices or servers holding local data samples, without exchanging the raw data itself.
Standards
OpenID Connect (OIDC)
An identity layer built on top of the OAuth 2.0 protocol that allows clients to verify the identity of end-users based on authentication performed by an authorization server.
FIDO2
A set of web authentication standards enabling password-less authentication through public key cryptography, biometrics, and security keys, developed by the FIDO Alliance and W3C.
ISO 27001
An international standard for information security management systems (ISMS) that specifies requirements for establishing, implementing, maintaining and continually improving information security.
ERC-20
A technical standard used for smart contracts on the Ethereum blockchain for implementing tokens. It defines a common list of rules that all Ethereum tokens must follow, enabling interoperability.
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