Generic question on dates / timezones

SEMICeu / SDG-sandbox

The SDG Sandbox creates a space for the review of data models produced by WP4 - Data semantics, formats and quality - in the context of the preparatory work for the Single Digital Gateway Regulation.

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Generic question on dates / timezones #22

Closed barthanssens closed 3 years ago

barthanssens commented 4 years ago

Could be out of scope, and is probably obvious, but whenever a date / timestamp is provided, I assume the default timezone will be the local one, where the event happens, if no TZ is explicitly provided ?

I.e.:

no TZ does not mean 'UTC' (nor UTC+1 / Brussels-Paris etc)
no TZ does not mean the same TZ as the state capital (more specifically: birth certificate of someone born in French Guiana, no TZ means the TZ is actually UTC-03.00 , and not Paris/UTC+01:00 ?)

sethvanhooland commented 4 years ago

Would the PO have a best practice for this context @costezki ? And hopefully you don't mind I drag you into these discussions, your input is very much appreciated!

costezki commented 4 years ago

If there is a way to recover the TZ from another part of the description, then fine, functionality can be set in place to update/correct the TZ where it is missing (relevant fields with timestamp, time and dateTimes datatype).

If the TZ information is not critical then I would rely on the fallback interpretation that then missing TZ is, in fact, the Coordinated Universal Time (or UTC).

Without knowing the context of the project, I would go for the latter, unless the former is a necessity.

pfragkou commented 3 years ago

when a document is digitally signed, the information of the time zone is mentioned. See for example

digital_signature

the same rational can be used here

costezki commented 3 years ago

The original question was about recovering the TZ in situations when the TZ is not explicitly mentioned. The case above shows that the TZ is available in the data.