This policy describes how AIAI collects, structures, licenses, and shares benefits from indigenous datasets. It applies across every partnership and every dataset we publish.
All data documented through AIAI is collected under Free, Prior, and Informed Consent (FPIC). Consent is recorded with the relevant community council before any field activity begins, and can be revoked at any time. Consent records are version-controlled and made available to participating communities on request.
Communities retain moral and customary ownership of the knowledge they share. AIAI stewards a structured, machine-readable representation of that knowledge under licensing terms agreed with the community of origin. Ownership is never transferred to AIAI or to any downstream licensee.
Datasets are published in three tiers: (a) Community tier — free, unrestricted internal use by the community of origin; (b) Research tier — free for non-commercial academic and public-interest research, with attribution; (c) Commercial tier — paid license, with benefit-sharing back to the source community defined in the license agreement.
A defined percentage of revenue from commercial licenses flows back to the source community via the community council. Benefit-sharing terms are public, audited annually, and reported in our governance disclosures.
Sacred, restricted, or ritual knowledge is documented only when communities explicitly direct us to, and is held under access controls determined by the source community — including outright exclusion from any dataset. AIAI does not override community decisions to restrict.
Communities and individual knowledge holders may request correction, restriction, or full withdrawal of contributions. Withdrawal propagates to all downstream licensees within a defined service-level window, and is reflected in dataset version history.
Use of AIAI datasets to train AI models requires an explicit commercial or research license. Bulk scraping, unlicensed redistribution, or use that conflicts with the source community's stated wishes is prohibited.