Data Subject Access Request (DSAR) Export Schemas Repository

This repository contains information about the structure and layout of data exports from several online platforms. Each export is in a directory under schemas/ named after that platform (e.g., Airbnb and Too_Good_To_Go).

We will use AllTrails's directory to illustrate how to navigate an export schema in this repository. By navigating to AllTrails/, you are viewing a simplified and generalized version of what a participant would see in their data export. With the exceptions described below, the names of the files and directories are as they appear in a real data export. Rather than trying to emulate the "average" export in the repository, we instead chose to prioritize breadth: even if a file was only present for one participant in our study, as long as we were able to schema-generalize the file, we decided to include it in the repository.

Files Without Content

In AllTrails/ there are seven directories and one file (remote.html). That file has no content, but we still included it in this repository since it existed in one of the exports we received for AllTrails. It has no content because we were not able to schema-generalize HTML files due to their more complex structure, compared to spreadsheet and JSON files (which we did schema-generalize). We made the decision to include it, though, since it contains valuable contextual information: that AllTrails has an HTML file that may provide consumers with an interface for interacting with their data.

Interpreting Schema-Generalized Files and Records

We took steps to remove participant-specific information from file names and record names. This was not only to protect participant privacy, but to avoid communicating redundant information. Consider the lone <custom_name>.jpg file in AllTrails/User Online Activity/photos/. Here, <custom_name> not only communicates that the file name does not follow a clear or useful naming structure that we could identify, but it also means that there can be multiple of this specific file type in this directory. In fact, any time a schema generalization artifact is in a file or record name, it may occur more than once in that location.

Below is a comprehensive list of schema generalization artifacts. Unless otherwise noted, it can apply to directories, files, and records:

• #: a digit.
• YYYY or YY: a four or two digit year.
• MMM or MM: a month expressed with digits or with by abbreviated name.
• DD: a day in a month.
• HH, mm, SS: hour, minute, and second, respectively.
• <username>: a username or handle in a platform.
• <email>: an email address.
• <phone number>: a phone number.
• <unique_id>: what is seemingly a randomly generated unique id, such as a UUID.
• <number>: a specific case with JSON keys and spreadsheet column names (i.e., records) that are numbers.
• <custom_name>: the most general of the schema generalization artifacts, this is used when there is a consumer or export specific string that did not have a discernible pattern.

Schema Files

Some files in the repository have this additional suffix attached to their name: .schema.json. This can be the case for files of any extension, but for the platforms in this repository, they appear after JSON, CSV, and XLSX files. When this is the case, the content of the file contains the structure of the file represented as a schema following the JSON Schema IETF draft standard. The content of JSON files are described by the schema in the typical way, i.e., properties list JSON keys and their value types. For CSV files, the schema properties correspond to CSV column names. For XLSX files, top-level properties correspond to sheet names within the file and second-level properties correspond to column names within that sheet.

Schema Variation

Note that data exports may vary based on the requester's location and age of account, the date on which the DSAR was made, and the settings chosen when filling out the DSAR form. The following platforms let consumers choose between file types when making requests, meaning data exports could diverge from the schemas in this repository:

• Airbnb
• Capcut
• Facebook
• Google
• Instagram
• Paypal
• Tiktok
• Venmo
• United