A distributed system defined by a governance framework that enables secure and trustworthy data transactions between participants that don't have existing trust relationships while supporting data sovereignty. A data space is implemented by a set of technical services that facilitate the sharing of interoperable Data Products. A NATO Dataspace is a data space leveraging existing NATO policies, standards and technologies, as well as governance models to facilitate secure and standardized data exchange and data linkage within a trusted Alliance Data Sharing Ecosystem (ADSE). It thereby provides a basis for creating smart-service scenarios and facilitating innovative inter-organizational / multinational business processes, while at the same time guaranteeing data sovereignty for data owners. Sharing data between autonomous entities requires the provision of metadata to facilitate the transfer of Data Products by making use of a data transfer (or application layer) protocol. Data sovereignty is a central aspect of NATO Data Spaces so that Information/Data owners can determine the handling rules on how their data and models might be accessed and used by other entities, e.g. within or across data spaces.