We care because it’s your data.
Your life. Your data.
Our vision is a world where everyone has complete control over their digital personal data. And the power to use it for the good of society as well as their own.
At privact, we are working on the ecosystem needed to make this vision a reality.
Key aspects of the privact ecosystem.
Full user control of personal data.
The principle of “local first” storage of personal data puts control back in the hands of data owners. Intuitive mechanisms for managing and granting access to this data allow everyone to benefit from this control. Together, we will achieve effective digital privacy for all. For the benefit of you and society.
Marketplace for storing, sharing, and using data.
A central database schema enables effective use of personal data. The resulting marketplace allows connected products and services to compete on a transparent and level playing field. The privact seal will help consumers identify these privacy-respecting services and products at the point of sale.
A thriving society by leveraging the shared data pool.
Research organisations get transparent and fair access to the largest pool of personal data ever created. Always with the full consent of individual data owners. And only at an aggregated level so that individual privacy is not compromised. This will create innovation for a prosperous society.
How the privact ecosystem works.
Below is a schematic illustration of the key concepts of the privact ecosystem needed to reclaim privacy in our digital lives. At privact, we are working together with partners to make this a reality.
Detailed explanations will appear as you click on the different elements.
This is an ecosystem, so there is no real starting point. But since we are all users, you might find “User Devices” a good place to start exploring.
About Trust, Transparency, and Free and Open Source Software.
How to gain the trust that is needed.
The privact ecosystem is designed to maximize control and minimize the trust required from data owners. But it is impossible to remove the need for trust entirely. So the yet-to-be-built foundation must earn and justify the trust it needs. To achieve this, privact aims for the highest standards in
- Reliability, e.g. by establishing the legal structure as a not-for-profit foundation that cannot be sold or change its constitution,
- Transparency, e.g. by using and producing only free and open source software,
- Control, e.g. through ongoing audits by trusted external organizations and incentives for white-hat hackers,
- Participation, e.g. by developing the ecosystem in close cooperation with data owners,
- Encryption, e.g. by using the Federated Secure Aggregation Protocol.
Why Free Software is the Key to Success.
Especially for user-facing free and open source software projects, the privact ecosystem solves a fundamental problem. These projects have a deep respect for the privacy of their users. So they typically don’t conduct large-scale user research, and therefore don’t know much about their users. As a result, they cannot do data-driven UX work. This is a problem privact solves for the first time ever.
With the privact ecosystem, even the most privacy-conscious free software projects can deeply understand their users without compromising their users’ privacy. And they can finally start optimizing the user experience based on real and rich data.
By solving this problem together with free and open source software projects, the privact ecosystem is further improved. Together, the critical user and data base to make the project attractive to proprietary software, service and product developers, and research in generalis will be created to help solve society’s big and small challenges. And make digital privacy a reality for everyone. Privact’s first FLOSS partner is KDE.
The Federated Secure Aggregation Protocol:
The Federated Secure Aggregation Protocol ensures that the data pool of all users can be analyzed, while the individual user always remains anonymous.
Detailed explanations will appear as you click on the different elements.
How you can help make a difference:
Join us
Contribute financially
Collaborate with us
We’d love to hear your thoughts. Come on over to our Discourse forum, read more about the concepts, and let us know what you think!
If you would like to help us achieve our vision through financial support, we have good news: your donation may even be tax deductible.
Are you working on a privacy project with a similar goal? Are you building an application or service and want to know how to use privact? Then reach out so we can work together!
Community Meeting every 2nd Monday of the month
Next community meeting will happen on January 13 at 8:00 pm (Berlin time) using Senfcall.
Meet us at:
38th Chaos Communication Congress – Dec. 27–30 2024 – Hamburg
FOSDEM 2025 – Feb. 1&2 2025 – Brussels
Past events:
September 3. 2024: Demo Day of the Prototype Fund in Berlin
May, 6. & 7. 2024 in Berlin
Our partners and supporters:
Partner
Funding