Proposal: Consent Assertion as a CAWG Gathered Assertion Type

THE PROBLEM: Identity assertions allow actors to bind their identity to an asset, but there is no standardized way to declare permitted and prohibited use of that asset.

WHY THIS MATTERS: Consent is currently expressed in contracts and platform terms of service, which are not machine-readable and not portable across systems.

PROPOSAL: Introduce a consent assertion as a gathered assertion type, enabling creators and rights holders to express permissions and restrictions in a machine-readable form.

DESIGN PRINCIPLES:

- Consent is declarative, not executable
- Consent is independent from provenance lifecycle
- Consent may reference external systems (e.g., registries)
- Consent should be associated with identity assertions for accountability

EXAMPLE CATEGORIES (illustrative, not exhaustive):

- AI training and data mining
- Licensing posture
- Derivative works
- Ethical/contextual restrictions
- Compensation model
- Revocation / validity

SCOPE BOUNDARY: This proposal defines what can be declared, not how consent is evaluated, enforced, or resolved.
The latter are implementation-specific and explicitly out of scope for CAWG standardization.

A more detailed working draft is available here ==> [Consent Assertion Spec Draft](https://docs.google.com/document/d/1pS0OojMaRrSdvlZeAsW-BXjtG78YevUdR2pdGK9mgG0/edit?usp=sharing)

Open to feedback on scope, categories, and alignment with existing CAWG assertions.