TIFF - Trusted Identity Framework & Foundation

Self-sovereign identity and data platform, built on trust.

Built by a team of seasoned software entrepreneurs, technologists and sociologists, and based on research from a top technology university in Europe that spans 15 years of distributed computing research and algorithm development, TIFF is the solution to self-sovereign identity and data management.

We have applied a deep knowledge of cryptography with insights garnered from building the foundations of one of the largest social networks in the world, to create a differentiated perspective on what a truly distributed identity and data management solution should be. Rather than forcing the community to adapt to the requirements of an online software platform, or being a slave to the whims of government, we have instead focused on how technology can leverage the underlying trust structures in communities in order to provide security and data integrity. We believe that only by making the technology so natural that it disappears into the background of daily interaction, will truly broad adoption be accomplished, and that only by broad adoption will the benefits of network effects provide maximum benefit to those in both developing and developed nations alike.

Our mission is to place the individual in full control of their data, and to create a privacy-protecting trusted platform for interaction and data exchange which can serve as the basis commerce or other activities. This is not just a vision: the foundation is already built and is being evaluated by government bodies in Europe.

We focus on providing self-sovereign identity solutions to individuals using technology and data structures that naturally mimic the trust structures in place within the local community. This leads to very low deployment costs, while still providing the privacy and data integrity guarantees and identity stability necessary for participating in the global community. The underlying technology has been in development for over a decade at leading academic institutes in Europe, and initial trial applications are being tested in several cities.

Our solution applies leading-edge cryptography such that data security starts with the individual, and the individual retains, at all times, complete control over their data, even in an environment where the devices and third parties are untrusted. On this foundation we provide intuitive user interfaces that naturally guide individuals in protecting their sensitive data.

Our system can be integrated with digital identity systems, including any third party that supplies a unique individual identifier, or serve as the basics for such a solution. For example, systems based on OAuth, or systems based on X509 certificates can easily be integrated. The underlying algorithms and data structures reflect the trust structures of the local community, allowing member of the local community to validate identity and attribute data, while still retaining full data privacy.

Technically we provide software APIs and SDKs allowing third party developers to easily include our libraries in their products.  Non-profit usage is free, commercial users make donations to our foundation to support further software development.

We are actively developing partnerships with established organizations. One large multiparty initiative in Africa focuses on public health, with our platform targeted at providing provenance of medical data. The second partnership focuses on protecting the rights of low-income, ill-informed migrant workers in Asia, Africa and the Middle-East. Our solution gives workers an identity and a low cost way of verifying all transactions related to the job and ensuring payment.

The underlying technology can be largely transparent and add guarantees to existing systems, or can be integrated into typical communication flows, much like a typical 2FA system. The provided SDKs provide tools necessary to support arbitrary flows.

Our goal is to provide a basis for interoperable, self-sovereign data solutions to the masses. As such, part or our solution is to develop open-source software supported by a foundation that will provide full auditability and portability for the lowest level data services, while supporting third-party integrations and commercial solutions.

Fundamentally, our solution does not require cellular or wireless connectivity. It is based primarily on local communications between local devices which collectively add the security and integrity guarantees the platform provides. Any communication mechanism, from bluetooth, SMS, NFC, or direct screen scanning is sufficient for the underlying technology to work, though the performance and usability increase with greater levels of connectivity. As such, the platform can scale from feature phones upward.

Self-sovereign identity and personal data management are crucial to developing and developed nations alike. Our vision is to create tools and standards that can be adopted locally, while retaining the security, integrity and trust guarantees needed to effectively participate in the global community. We see this as a gateway into the global economy, and as a platform for add-on services. We believe systems dependent upon global services will not scale or remain secure, and instead, our technology platform naturally mirrors the underlying social structures, and can thereby scale to meet the needs of the world at large.

We work closely with a leading European academic institute, who has developed the underlying algorithms for over a decade, including a national identity provider, who together are performing initial trials in several cities.

In addition we are actively developing partnerships with established organizations. One large multiparty initiative in Africa focuses on public health, and the second partnership focusing on protecting the rights of low-income, ill-informed migrant workers in Asia, Africa and the Middle-East. Our solution gives workers an identity and a low cost way of verifying all transactions related to the job and ensuring payment.

We are a seasoned multi-disciplinary team with experience in academia, technology, entrepreneurship and government. We have been key founding members of some of the most visible standards efforts on the Internet and in multiple vertical industry alliances.

Our complementary experiences are on multiple levels and range from software development, internet standards, open innovation strategy, while eg aligning industries within API-ecosystems.

As such we believe we are uniquely qualified to lead an effort toward broader adoption of identity solutions.

Non-profit usage is free, commercial users make donations to our foundation to support further software development. Participating in multiparty partnerships with well-established organizations will provide us with additional longer term resources. Commercial identity and data management solutions, and vertical applications will be offered to government and corporate entities.

The Mission Billion Challenge is focused on an area that we are actively pursuing and for which we are already developing solutions. Winning will provide us with name recognition and a reach into complementary communities and will thereby help with adoption of the technology, and ultimately, to solving real problems for real people.

The greatest barriers to success are the existing centralized systems, and adoption by the end users. Governments, companies and organizations must be willing to alter their existing workflows and to adopt self-sovereign software, which will empower their end users to the detriment of centralized entities. Our solution supports grass-roots adoption and we work closely with larger multiparty initiatives and third party developers based on our experience in co-creating innovation API-ecosystems. This way, we can tackle the adoption problem from the end-user and larger ecosystem perspectives.