What is a Personal Data Server (PDS)

A Personal Data Server (PDS) is the online service that stores and serves one person's records. It holds the person's repository and answers requests for the records in it. In Community OS, the records that name a person, such as their support plan, delegations, and consent grants, live in that person's own PDS repository.

What a PDS is

A PDS holds one person's repository. The person controls the account. The records in the repository stay with the person. If the person changes provider, the records move with them, because the records are addressed by the person's DID, not by the server.

The PDS is not a database the organisation owns. The organisation's own records, such as staff lists and service data, stay with the organisation. The PDS holds the portable records that belong to the person.

Why this matters to you

As a user, you do not manage a PDS. Community OS manages it for you. What matters is what the design guarantees:

• Your portable records are stored in your own repository, under your control.
• Records are addressed by your DID, so they keep pointing at you even if a server changes.
• Access to the records still needs the relationship records and an active consent. The PDS does not open your records to anyone by itself.

Where to learn more

• AT Protocol faithfulness explains how the PDS fits the AT Protocol model, and the difference between identity, account, and relationship.
• Technical architecture shows where the PDS sits in the Community OS system.
• What is a DID explains the address that records use instead of a server.