Socialig/Use Case TF/Profile Use Cases/Federation of Profile Information to a New Social Network or System

Use Case Title

Federation of Profile Information to a New Social Network or System

Use Case

1. Kim establishes an account for herself in a profile provider service.
2. On that account, Kim creates a master profile which includes both personal and business information about herself.
3. When Kim joins various online communities (personal- or business-oriented), she 'pulls' (or 'federates') the parts of her profile that she wants to share, from her master profile to the new community.
4. If Kim updates information in her master profile, the updates will flow as needed to her federated profiles.
5. Kim controls which information is shared and to whom it is shared.

Narrative

Kim wants to use personal information stored by the profile provider to populate a profile on a new (to Kim) public social network or in a private business system, rather than manually re-entering it. Upon joining the new social network or system, Kim submits the unique identifier for the profile stored by the profile provider. All of Kim's profile information is then federated to the new social network or system, excepting any fields that Kim has explicitly chosen not to share, either in advance or at the time of actual federation.

Actors

The principal actors in this use case include:

• Profile owner: The individual described by the information in the profile
• Profile provider: The entity that stores profile data on its server(s) and shares it with others upon request. This may be an organization or the profile owner, should s/he choose to self-host their profile.
• Profile recipient: The individual or system seeking access to some or all of an individual's profile data.

Goals of Actors

• Profile owner: Seeks to have information about themselves stored by a profile provider with a new social network or system
• Profile provider: To serve user profile information to another social network or system upon command of profile owner
• Profile recipient: Automated creation and population of a profile for a new user

Success Scenario

The profile owner is able to join a new social network or system and quickly populate a profile there without rekeying information. Upon receiving a valid request from a profile requestor, the profile provider serves the appropriate information back to the requestor. For each new network or system, Kim is able to control, at a granular level, what personal information is and isn't being shared.

Success Criteria

• Profile information is securely passed from provider to requestor
• Profile owner is able to specify the precise profile data fields to be shared and the profile provider serves only those fields to the requestor
• The requestor is able to map data from the profile provider into a new user profile in its network or system

Failure Criteria

• Profile request is not recognized or fulfilled by the profile provider
• Profile owner is unable to control, at a granular level, which information is shared with a specific profile requestor
• Profile provider transmits profile information that the owner has indicated should not be shared
• Profile provider transmits information belonging to a different profile than the one requested

Graphic Illustration(s) [optional]

Provide a graphical representation of the social use case (formalism is not required - any format or approach is acceptable, from hand drawn stick figures/systems to UML

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