Identity Management
Persistent user identification across sessions using server-set cookies, authorized server-verified recovery, and cross-device resolution.
User Identity & Attribution Framework
A platform-agnostic specification for native identity management and marketing attribution. Built into your website, not bolted on.
Specification edition: 3.1.1 · Licensed under Apache-2.0
What is UIAF?
Section titled “What is UIAF?”UIAF is an implementation specification, not a library and not a SaaS product. It describes how to build user identity management and marketing attribution directly into your website platform (WordPress, Next.js, Django, Rails, or any framework).
The core principle: identity management belongs inside the website, because external tracking scripts load late, ad blockers stop them, and they cannot set server-side cookies. UIAF code runs on your server and in your pages, which removes the most common blocking points. No first-party path is unblockable.
Attribution Capture
First-touch and last-touch attribution from UTM parameters, referrers, and click IDs, captured at the source.
Endpoint Schema
Self-describing JSON payloads sent to your endpoint (sGTM, custom API, Snowplow). One schema for all event types.
Consent Integration
Full capability where effective permissions and deployment policy allow; graceful degradation otherwise.
Design Philosophy
Section titled “Design Philosophy”Native, Not Bolted On
Code runs in the same process as your application. The server sets the cookie on the first response. No external script dependencies.
Platform Agnostic
Mock pseudocode throughout, never framework-specific. You translate the patterns to your stack.
Sends, Doesn't Track
UIAF manages identity and sends structured data to an endpoint. It does not define events, metrics, or dashboards.
Privacy by Design
Consent state degrades capability, never breaks it. Server-side capture only where policy permits.
Quick Navigation
Section titled “Quick Navigation” Quickstart Where to start reading, and in what order to build (non-normative).
FAQ Common questions about identity, consent, attribution, and implementation.
Test Scenarios Given/When/Then test scenarios for validating your implementation.
Browser Landscape Hard constraints per browser: what is physically possible.
Identity Resolution Cross-device linking and deterministic evidence rules.
Data Handling Storage registry, retention, purge rules, and security requirements.
Implementation Guide Concrete integration patterns for WordPress, Next.js, Django, and more.
Conformance How a deployment claims conformance, and how the spec is released.
Changelog Payload-diff-first history of the specification.
Built by Data to Value — The Data Activation Agency