Ontology Documentation

📚 Detailed Documentation Available: For comprehensive technical documentation, visit the hosted documentation site. You can also explore the GitHub repository for source code, examples, and additional resources.

The CAC (Crimes Against Children) Ontology Family provides a comprehensive semantic framework for modeling child exploitation investigations. This section provides detailed documentation about the ontology structure, modules, and usage.

Overview

The CAC Ontology Family consists of 35+ specialized modules organized into six domain areas plus a core semantic spine and bridge layer, enhanced with comprehensive gUFO (Unified Foundational Ontology) integration for improved semantic precision, temporal modeling, and validation capabilities. v3.0.0 introduced the Semantic Spine (cac-core: namespace) — a stable, top-level class hierarchy that mediates all alignment to gUFO, UCO, and CASE. v3.1.0 (current) expands that spine with ConditioningPhase and CaseLinker lifecycle modeling, pins imports to CASE/UCO 1.5.0 and gUFO 1.0.0, and uses stable unversioned ontology document IRIs with versioning via owl:versionIRI.

Namespace: https://cacontology.projectvic.org Spine Namespace: https://cacontology.projectvic.org/core# (prefix cac-core:)

Where the canonical ontology lives

CAC Ontology evolves quickly. The canonical source of truth is the main GitHub repository:

Built on the Linux Foundation Cyber Domain Ontology (CDO)

CAC Ontology extends UCO and CASE, which are part of the Linux Foundation Cyber Domain Ontology ecosystem:

Ontology Modules

Semantic Spine & Bridges (5 modules)

Core Framework (3 modules)

International Coordination & Global Frameworks (4 modules)

High-Priority Criminal Activities (5+ modules)

Specialized Investigation (5+ modules)

Technical Support (4+ modules)

Victim Services & Task Force Management (5+ modules)

Validation Components (30 modules)

What’s new in v3.1.0

v3.1.0 expands investigation modeling on the Semantic Spine:

Earlier: v3.0.0 Semantic Spine

v3.0.0 was the major architectural release that introduced:

Recent prior releases (2.10 - 2.12)

Namespace and Prefixes

All ontology modules use the standardized namespace structure:

Example Usage

@prefix cac-core: <https://cacontology.projectvic.org/core#> .
@prefix cacontology: <https://cacontology.projectvic.org#> .
@prefix cacontology-core: <https://cacontology.projectvic.org/core#> .
@prefix cacontology-taskforce: <https://cacontology.projectvic.org/taskforce#> .

# Example: Create a CAC investigation with spine-anchored classes
:investigation-001 a cacontology:CACInvestigation ;
    cacontology:hasReport :report-001 ;
    cacontology:status "active" .

# Phases, Roles, Events inherit spine types through the class hierarchy
:phase-001 a cacontology:InitialPhase ;      # inherits cac-core:Phase
    rdfs:label "Cybertip Triage" .

:action-001 a cacontology:ReceiveCybertipAction ;  # inherits cac-core:InvestigativeAction
    rdfs:label "Process incoming NCMEC CyberTip" .

Integration with CASE, UCO, and gUFO

CAC Ontology extends and integrates with:

Alignment to these external ontologies is mediated through the Semantic Spine and Bridge modules, giving domain modules a single, predictable anchoring layer rather than direct cross-ontology subclassing. From v3.1.0 onward, CASE/UCO imports are pinned to 1.5.0 and gUFO imports to 1.0.0.

Documentation Resources

Repository Documentation

Additional documentation is available in the GitHub repository: