MSC1692: Terms of service at registration

proposals/1692-terms-at-registration.md

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+# MSC1692: Terms of service at registration
+
+At registration, homeservers may wish to require the user to accept a given set of policy documents,
+such as a terms of service and privacy policy. There may be many different types of documents, all of
+which are versioned and presented in (potentially) multiple languages.
+
+This proposal covers requiring users to accept the list of documents during registration. Future
+improvements could include informing the user *after* registration that a document has changed, which
+has been spun out to [MSC3012](https://github.com/matrix-org/matrix-spec-proposals/pull/3012).
+
+## Proposal
+
+The [User-Interactive Authentication](https://spec.matrix.org/v1.9/client-server-api/#user-interactive-authentication-api)
+API (UIA) is currently used during registration to create a new account. In future, it is expected
+that OIDC will be used instead, which can include support for this MSC's principles without needing
+to change the Matrix specification itself. As a measure until OIDC is here though, this MSC exists
+to fill the need.
+
+A new `m.login.terms` authentication type is introduced, allowing servers to include it in registration
+flows if it desires. Servers which do not require policy acceptance at registration are not required
+to support this flow.
+
+The parameters for the new authentication type look like the following:
+
+```json
+{
+    "policies": {
+        "terms_of_service": {
+            "version": "1.2",
+            "en": {
+                "name": "Terms of Service",
+                "url": "https://example.org/somewhere/terms-1.2-en.html"
+            },
+            "fr": {
+                "name": "Conditions d'utilisation",
+                "url": "https://example.org/somewhere/terms-1.2-fr.html"
+            }
+        },
+        "privacy_policy": {
+            "version": "1.2",
+            "en": {
+                "name": "Privacy Policy",
+                "url": "https://example.org/somewhere/privacy-1.2-en.html"
+            },
+            "fr": {
+                "name": "Politique de confidentialité",
+                "url": "https://example.org/somewhere/privacy-1.2-fr.html"
+            }
+        }
+    }
+}
+```
+
+Each key under `policies` is a "Policy ID", and defined by the server. They are an opaque identifier
+(described later in this proposal). Each policy object associated with the policy ID has a required
+`version` as a convenience to the client, and is another opaque identifier. All other keys are language
+codes to represent the same document. The client picks the language which best suits the user.
+
+Language codes *should* be formatted as per [Section 2.2 of RFC 5646](https://datatracker.ietf.org/doc/html/rfc5646#section-2.2),
+noting that some implementation *may* use an underscore instead of dash. For example, `en_US` instead
+of `en-US`. This recommendation is to ensure maximum compatibility with existing conventions around
+language choices in (Matrix) clients.
+
+`name` and `url` for each policy document are required, and are arbitrary strings with no maximum
+length. `url` *must* be a valid URI with scheme `https://` or `http://`. Insecure HTTP is discouraged.
+
+If a client encounters an invalid parameter, registration should stop with an error presented to the
+user.
+
+To complete the stage, accepting *all* of the listed documents, the client submits an empty `auth`
+dict. The client *should* present the user with a checkbox to accept each policy, including a link
+to the provided `url`, or otherwise rely on [fallback auth](https://spec.matrix.org/v1.9/client-server-api/#fallback).
+
+The server is expected to track which document versions it presented to the user during registration,
+if applicable.
+
+### Opaque identifier
+
+This definition is inherited from [MSC1597](https://github.com/matrix-org/matrix-spec-proposals/pull/1597).
+
+> Opaque IDs must be strings consisting entirely of the characters
+> `[0-9a-zA-Z._~-]`. Their length must not exceed 255 characters and they must
+> not be empty.
+
+## Unstable prefix
+
+Regrettably, this MSC was implemented with *stable* identifiers before an unstable identifiers process
+was established. Implementation has existed in some capacity since 2018: https://github.com/matrix-org/synapse/pull/4004
+
+Noting that the modern MSC process forbids such behaviour, new implementations should use the stable
+`m.login.terms` identifier regardless of MSC status. If the MSC changes in a breaking way, a new
+identifier *must* be chosen, and *must* include a proper unstable prefix.