= User Opt-in Consent = The [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/General_Data_Protection_Regulation European GDPR law] requires users to opt-in to a terms of service. "Users who want to sign-up to a (BOINC) project need to give their informed explicit consent to how the project processes their data, before any personally identifiable information about that new user gets processed/stored by the project. This opt-in statement of consent then needs to tracked by the project as proof." Additionally, existing users will need to opt-in to the same terms of service, with their consent date saved. == User Experience == When using the main BOINC manager to join a project (Add Project), the user is shown a Terms of Use / Porject policy text. S/he must accept the terms of use before the account is created. As part of the account creation process, the date-time of this consent is recorded in the project's database. For account managers... (to be written) For Web registration, the login page can provide a terms of service display. == Existing code == As of April 2018, BOINC already contains a [wiki:TermsOfUse 'terms of use' mechanism] for the BOINC client when creating a new account. If the file 'terms_of_use.txt' (filename is hardcod-ed) is in the root of the project directory, the contents of the file will be presented to the user when s/he creates an account. However, there is no persistent 'storing' of the datetime the user consented to the terms of use. For Web registration, the code does not use the [wiki:TermsOfUse] text. But it can be modified to do so. Additionally, it is not known whether account managers, such as BAM!, use this terms-of-use mechanism. `boinccmd` command-line client does not use the [wiki:TermsOfUse] mechanism. Thus when a user creates an account, s/he does not see any terms of use, even if it exists. == Technical Implementation == === Database === Two new tables: `consent` and `consent_type` * `consent` * `userid` - the user id * `consent_id` - consent id * `consent_time` - `datetime` type attribute : unixtime of when user `id` gave consent to `consent_id`. If zero, user has not consented (yet). * `consent_flag` - the boolean which explicitly stats that this user id has given consent to this consent id. If this is 0 (FALSE), the following boolean should be 1 (TRUE). * `consent_not_required` - a special boolean that indicates whether or not consent is not required. This feature may be used by certain special ... * `source` - text field containing the technology actor which the user gave consent. See below `userid` and `consent_id` together make up the primary key of this table. * `consent_type` * `consent_id` - consent id, also the primary key. * `description` - text field describing the consent that user gives (or has given). ==== Discussion ==== Some discussion on `source` string. Examples * If a user gives consent by registering for an account using the BOINC GUI client (BOINC manager), `source` would be set to 'client'. * If the account is created on a Web site registration page, `source` would be set to 'web'. * Account Managers should put their name in, e.g. `source` = 'BAM!' or `source` = 'GridRepublic'. * command-line client uses 'boinccmd'. * In the case where `source` is not specified (but consent is being used) then a default `source` of 'URL' will be used. * 'URL' represents the fact that a user can create an account using the RPC by typing the correct parameters into the URL bar of a browser, or using a command line tool such as curl. Re: `consent_type` table At first there will be one record in `consent_type`: the main terms-of-use a user consents to when joining the project. The `consent` table uses `id` and `consent_id` as the primary key, so a single user may consent to multiple items. This allows for flexibility - a project may decide to present a user with multiple items to consent to. Each can be recorded in the `consent` table with a different `consent_id`, whose description is stored in the `consent_type` table. Currently when a project is created, or updated to the latest database schema, the `consent_type` table will be: {{{ SELECT * FROM testp1.consent_type\G *************************** 1. row *************************** consent_id: 1 description: General terms-of-use for this BOINC project. }}} This consent type #1 should **not** be modified or deleted by projects! === Project config === A new project option will be included in `config.xml` for projects, a `enable_record_optin_consent` tag. This flag would toggle whether or not the project records the consent of users: basically it would toggle using this new feature. === RPC === RPCs that will need to change: * `create_account.php` * `am_set_info.php` The main RPC that needs to be changed is `create_account.php`, which needs to insert a record into the `consent` table when the user creates his/her account- assuming s/he consents to a site's terms of use. Additional parameters for `create_account.php` RPC are * `consent_id` = 'integer' - optional, defaults to 1 unless specified. If given a `consent_id` that does not exist in the `consent_type` table, then the RPC will return an error. * `optin` = 0|1 - If true, sets the `consent_flag` to 1. If false the `consent_flag` is set to 0 and `consent_not_required` is set to 1. See discussion of anonymous accounts above. * `source` = 'string' * example: 'client', see above discussion about `source` for more details. `am_set_info.php` needs to be modified in order to contain a consent parameter, which also modifies the `consent` table in the database. Additional parameters are * `consent_id` = 'integer' - required if any of the below are to be set. If this parameter is not present, the `consent` table will not be modified. * `consent_settime` = '0|1' - sets the `consent_time` to the current unixtime. * `consent_flag` - '0|1' - sets the consent_flag to 0 or 1. * `consent_not_required` - '0|1' - sets the consent_not_required flag to 0 or 1. * `consent_source` - 'string' * example: 'client', see above discussion about `source` for more details. am_set_info.php can be used to update the `consent` table or to insert a new record. The user and consent ids are used as the primary keys of the `consent` table. Thus if both are given and found in already, the RPC will update the fields with the other `consent_` parameters. Likewise if this is a new row, then the RPC will insert a new record into the table using the fields. Note: if inserting a new record the RPC will first check to see if the `consent_id` exists in the `consent_type` table. If not an (-1) XML error will be returned. If the `consent_id` does exist, the insertion of a new record requires the following parameters `consent_id`, `consent_flag`, `consent_not_required`, and `consent_source`. If any of the four are not present, an error is returned. The `consent_settime` boolean is ignored. The record is inserted with the current unixtime. Example: {{{ am_set_info.php?consent_id=99&consent_flag=1&consent_not_required=0&consent_source=accountmanager }}} The RPC is attempting to set the consent information for a `consent_id` of 99. First the `consent` table is checked with the userid corresponding to the authenticator and the `consent_id`. If a record is found, it is updated with the parameters in the RPC: e.g., flag, not_required, source. If no record is found in `consent`, the `consent_type` table is checked to see if there a id of 99. If there is not, an error is returned. If there is such a `consent_id`==99, then the RPC will insert `consent_id`=99 and userid (from authenticator) into the `consent` table setting the additional parameters: e.g., flag, source. === Web site === The Web site account registration page will have a new panel that includes the terms of use text. This will be the same text file as [wiki:TermsOfUse]. The text file is processed with PHP's `nl2br()` function in order to format the plain text into text that is readable in HTML. Admins should **not** put HTML tags into the plain text [wiki:TermsOfUse] file. The registration page will have an additional checkbox that requires a user opt-in to the terms of use. If this is not checked, the account will not be created, and an error hsown to the user. Only when the checkbox is checked, will an account be created. A new record will be inserted into the `consent` table, in the same manner as the create_account RPC. === Anonymous Accounts === (to be written)