People Finder Interchange Format
Encyclopedia
People Finder Interchange Format (PFIF) is a widely used open data standard for information about missing or displaced people. PFIF was designed to enable information sharing among governments, relief organizations, and other survivor registries to help people find and contact their family and friends after a disaster.
. It consists of person records, which contain identifying information about a person, and note records, which contain comments and updates on the status and location of a person. Each note is attached to one person. PFIF defines the set of fields in these records and an XML-based format to store or transfer them. PFIF XML records can be embedded in Atom
feeds or RSS
feeds.
PFIF allows different repositories of missing person data to exchange and aggregate their records. Every record has a unique identifier, which indicates the domain name of the original repository where the record was created. The unique record identifier is preserved as the record is copied from one repository to another. For example, any repository that receives a copy of a given person can publish a note attached to that person, and even as the note and person are copied to other repositories, they remain traceable to their respective original sources.
One of the first and largest of these was the survivor registry at safe.millennium.berkeley.edu, which was created by graduate students Ka-Ping Yee and Miriam Walker and hosted on the Millennium computer cluster at UC Berkeley. To reduce the confusion caused by the proliferation of different websites, the Berkeley survivor registry began collecting data from several of the other major sites into one searchable database. Because the information was formatted differently from site to site, each site required manual effort and custom programming to download and incorporate its data.
After Hurricane Katrina
displaced hundreds of thousands of people in 2005, online survivor registries again appeared on many different websites. A large volunteer effort called the Katrina PeopleFinder Project
worked to gather and manually re-enter this information into one searchable database provided by Salesforce.com
. An organizer of the project, David Geilhufe, put out a call for technical help to create a data standard that would enable survivor registries to aggregate and share information with each other via automated means. Working with Katrina volunteers Kieran Lal and Jonathan Plax and the CiviCRM
team, Yee drafted the first specification for People Finder Interchange Format, which was released on September 4, 2005 as PFIF 1.0.
PFIF 1.1, with some small corrections, was released on September 5. The Salesforce.com
database added support for PFIF; Yahoo!
and Google
also launched searchable databases of Katrina survivors that exchanged information using PFIF.
The next major use of PFIF occurred after the 2010 Haiti earthquake
when Google launched Google Person Finder, which used a data model based on PFIF and exchanged data with CNN
, the New York Times, the National Library of Medicine, and other survivor registries using PFIF. However, PFIF 1.1 had made US-specific assumptions that were not applicable to Haiti. Released on January 26, 2010, PFIF 1.2 added fields for a person's home country and international postal code, and fields for sex, age, date of birth, status, and links between duplicate records for the same person.
PFIF 1.3, released in March 2011, addressed the privacy of personal information by adding a field to specify an expiry date on each person record and setting out requirements to conform repositories to delete their data. PFIF 1.3 also moved away from the US-specific assumption of a first and last name by adding one field for a person's full name.
Overview
PFIF is extended from XMLXML
Extensible Markup Language is a set of rules for encoding documents in machine-readable form. It is defined in the XML 1.0 Specification produced by the W3C, and several other related specifications, all gratis open standards....
. It consists of person records, which contain identifying information about a person, and note records, which contain comments and updates on the status and location of a person. Each note is attached to one person. PFIF defines the set of fields in these records and an XML-based format to store or transfer them. PFIF XML records can be embedded in Atom
Atom (standard)
The name Atom applies to a pair of related standards. The Atom Syndication Format is an XML language used for web feeds, while the Atom Publishing Protocol is a simple HTTP-based protocol for creating and updating web resources.Web feeds allow software programs to check for updates published on a...
feeds or RSS
RSS
-Mathematics:* Root-sum-square, the square root of the sum of the squares of the elements of a data set* Residual sum of squares in statistics-Technology:* RSS , "Really Simple Syndication" or "Rich Site Summary", a family of web feed formats...
feeds.
PFIF allows different repositories of missing person data to exchange and aggregate their records. Every record has a unique identifier, which indicates the domain name of the original repository where the record was created. The unique record identifier is preserved as the record is copied from one repository to another. For example, any repository that receives a copy of a given person can publish a note attached to that person, and even as the note and person are copied to other repositories, they remain traceable to their respective original sources.
History
Within three days after the 2001 September 11 attacks, people were using over 25 different online forums and survivor registries to report and check on their family and friends.One of the first and largest of these was the survivor registry at safe.millennium.berkeley.edu, which was created by graduate students Ka-Ping Yee and Miriam Walker and hosted on the Millennium computer cluster at UC Berkeley. To reduce the confusion caused by the proliferation of different websites, the Berkeley survivor registry began collecting data from several of the other major sites into one searchable database. Because the information was formatted differently from site to site, each site required manual effort and custom programming to download and incorporate its data.
After Hurricane Katrina
Hurricane Katrina
Hurricane Katrina of the 2005 Atlantic hurricane season was a powerful Atlantic hurricane. It is the costliest natural disaster, as well as one of the five deadliest hurricanes, in the history of the United States. Among recorded Atlantic hurricanes, it was the sixth strongest overall...
displaced hundreds of thousands of people in 2005, online survivor registries again appeared on many different websites. A large volunteer effort called the Katrina PeopleFinder Project
Katrina PeopleFinder Project
The Katrina PeopleFinder Project was set up in early September, 2005 in response to the dozens of groups collecting "lost and safe" lists for people affected by Hurricane Katrina....
worked to gather and manually re-enter this information into one searchable database provided by Salesforce.com
Salesforce.com
Salesforce.com is an enterprise cloud computing company headquartered in San Francisco that distributes business software on a subscription basis. Salesforce.com hosts the applications off-site...
. An organizer of the project, David Geilhufe, put out a call for technical help to create a data standard that would enable survivor registries to aggregate and share information with each other via automated means. Working with Katrina volunteers Kieran Lal and Jonathan Plax and the CiviCRM
CiviCRM
CiviCRM is a web-based, internationalized suite of computer software for constituency relationship management, that falls under the broad rubric of customer relationship management...
team, Yee drafted the first specification for People Finder Interchange Format, which was released on September 4, 2005 as PFIF 1.0.
PFIF 1.1, with some small corrections, was released on September 5. The Salesforce.com
Salesforce.com
Salesforce.com is an enterprise cloud computing company headquartered in San Francisco that distributes business software on a subscription basis. Salesforce.com hosts the applications off-site...
database added support for PFIF; Yahoo!
Yahoo!
Yahoo! Inc. is an American multinational internet corporation headquartered in Sunnyvale, California, United States. The company is perhaps best known for its web portal, search engine , Yahoo! Directory, Yahoo! Mail, Yahoo! News, Yahoo! Groups, Yahoo! Answers, advertising, online mapping ,...
and Google
Google
Google Inc. is an American multinational public corporation invested in Internet search, cloud computing, and advertising technologies. Google hosts and develops a number of Internet-based services and products, and generates profit primarily from advertising through its AdWords program...
also launched searchable databases of Katrina survivors that exchanged information using PFIF.
The next major use of PFIF occurred after the 2010 Haiti earthquake
2010 Haiti earthquake
The 2010 Haiti earthquake was a catastrophic magnitude 7.0 Mw earthquake, with an epicentre near the town of Léogâne, approximately west of Port-au-Prince, Haiti's capital. The earthquake occurred at 16:53 local time on Tuesday, 12 January 2010.By 24 January, at least 52 aftershocks...
when Google launched Google Person Finder, which used a data model based on PFIF and exchanged data with CNN
CNN
Cable News Network is a U.S. cable news channel founded in 1980 by Ted Turner. Upon its launch, CNN was the first channel to provide 24-hour television news coverage, and the first all-news television channel in the United States...
, the New York Times, the National Library of Medicine, and other survivor registries using PFIF. However, PFIF 1.1 had made US-specific assumptions that were not applicable to Haiti. Released on January 26, 2010, PFIF 1.2 added fields for a person's home country and international postal code, and fields for sex, age, date of birth, status, and links between duplicate records for the same person.
PFIF 1.3, released in March 2011, addressed the privacy of personal information by adding a field to specify an expiry date on each person record and setting out requirements to conform repositories to delete their data. PFIF 1.3 also moved away from the US-specific assumption of a first and last name by adding one field for a person's full name.
Implementations
The following websites and software projects implement PFIF:- Google Person Finder
- Sahana EdenSahana FOSS Disaster Management SystemThe Sahana Free and Open Source Disaster Management System was conceived during the 2004 Sri Lanka tsunami. The system was developed to help manage the disaster and was deployed by the Sri Lankan government's Center of National Operations , which included the Center of Humanitarian Agencies...
- National Library of Medicine People Locator
- Ushahidi
- PFIF .NET Library
- XML::PFIF Perl module