Privacy by Design Foundation

The Privacy by Design Foundation aims, in a general sense, to support the development and the use of open, privacy-friendly and secure digital technology, with a user-centered focus.

At this moment the foundation focuses on the Yivi app, a wallet for digital identity, and on PubHubs, a community platform for safe online contact. The foundation owns the brand rights of Yivi and PubHubs. The foundation does have employees, but it cooperates with other parties to maintain and further develop Yivi and PubHubs so that they can be used widely.

The board of the foundation

• chair Bart Jacobs (b.jacobs ‘at’ privacybydesign.foundation) is a professor or security, privacy & identity at Radboud University. Hij works with his research group on many societally relevant security and privacy topics and is often involved in societal discussions about digitalisation.

• Secretary Monique Hennekes is a judge at the court of appeal of Arnhem-Leeuwarden. Before that, Monique was an attorney-at-law, specialised in privacy and IT law. Monique helps the Privacy by Design foundation with the legal aspects regarding Yivi.

• Treasurer Jean Popma (j.popma ‘at’ privacybydesign.foundation) has ample experience as former project manager Applied Security Research at Radboud University Nijmegen and as Security Officer within Radboud University.

• Martijn van der Linden is teamleader citizen contact of the municipality Meierijstad. Earlier he worked for the city of Nijmegen where he was closely involved with the pioneering Yivi (at the time: IRMA) developments there.

• Peter Eikelboom is product owner of the eduwallet at SURF/Npuls. His team investigates what a wallet with a digital identity and credentials can mean for education (and the labour market) Earlier, Peter worked at SIDN, where he was closely involved with the Yivi developments there.

Data about the foundation

• E-mail: info ‘at’ privacybydesign.foundation
• Follow Yivi developments at Mastodon
• Follow PubHubs developments at Mastodon
• Postal address: Toernooiveld 212, 6525 EC Nijmegen
• Chamber of Commerce registration number: 67144128; fiscaal (RSIN) number: 856848359
• Bank account: NL54 INGB 0007522950; BIC: INGBNL2A
• BTW nr: NL856848359B01
• Founding date: 25 okt. 2016
• Donate Bitcoins to the foundation on account/address: 13RJFgBP2XDqQDY2R3mYzwwUqwYX56AeM5

Year reports of the foundation (in Dutch)

The Yivi app was originally developed at Radboud University, Nijmegen. At the time the app was called IRMA. Users of the Yivi app can disclose, in a privacy-friendly, secure manner, properties about themselves (such as: I am older than 18), without revealing other non-relevant personal information. Via such attributes users can authenticate, for instance for logging into a website. Also, with Yivi, they can produce attribute-based digital signatures.

Yivi is a precursor wallet app for digital identities that will be introduced in the European Union, from 2026 onwards. The European Commission got inspiration, for these wallet apps, by Yivi’s approach to privacy-friendly proportional authentication with attributes. Yivi’s open source character and decentralised architecture, however, are not (yet) mandatory in European plans.

Yivi cooperation

The Privacy by Design foundation was founded in 2016, for the management and further development of the Yivi app. During 2019 - 2024 this has been done in cooperation with SIDN, the foundation responsible for registration of webdomains in The Netherlands. Since 2024 the management and further development of Yivi happens in close cooperation with the Dutch company Caesar Groep.

The Privacy by Design foundation has a cooperation contract with Caesar that regulates that Caesar may use the Yivi brand and will further develop Yivi as part of its business activities, under the conditions that Yivi remains open source, privacy-friendly, secure (with hosting in Europe) and free for end-users. Strategic decisions about Yivi are jointly taken.

Some Yivi applications

Below you find a small selection of online places where the Yivi app helps you.

• Logging into the Municipality of Nijmegen

• Access to your ensurance history via Stichting CIS

• Secure transfer of (encrypted and digitally signed) documents via PostGuard, a secure variation on “WeTransfer”

• Logging in and registration for the community platform PubHubs

• In addition, several Yivi demo’s are available.

Joining in?

• Come to the Yivi meetings, about three times per year.

• Register for the Yivi mailinglist, especially for announcements of these meetings, by sending a mail to: b.jacobs ‘at’ privacybydesign.foundation.

• Follow Yivi developments on Mastodon

• Get in touch with the Yivi team, for questions about possible applications of Yivi or for helping out with the further development (contact ‘at’ yivi.app).

PubHubs is an abbreviation of Public Hubs. It is the name of a new community network based on public values. PubHubs is being developed at Radboud University, Nijmegen. It is available as prototype, for try-outs. PubHubs is open source and transparent and protects the personal data of its participants. PubHubs aims to offer an online environment for organisations that wish have trusted contact with and between their audience, such as teaching and healthcare institutions, public bodies, patient federations, cultural associations, sport clubs, etc. PubHubs wants to offer local environments with a suitable combination of privacy and accountability.