PDPP Principles · v1.0 · Final. Published 3 September 2026. Signing will open pending hosting confirmation.
The principles guiding PDPP
When an individual permits a service to use information held about them by another, the permission is commonly granted in general terms and recorded nowhere the individual can examine. The choice is often between all of the information and none of it, and once given, the permission is rarely visible, rarely verifiable, and rarely reversible in practice. The party relying on the information carries the same uncertainty, since it holds no reliable record of what was consented to, for what purpose, or by whom.
As more of daily life is mediated by systems that act on personal information, and as artificial intelligence increases what can be done with it, the absence of a specific, durable and enforceable account of what has been agreed has become a matter of general concern.
The Personal Data Portability Protocol is an open technical specification for the authorization and disclosure of personal data, addressed to that concern. These principles set out the intentions behind it.
- 01
Primacy of the individual.
Decisions about how information concerning a person is shared and used should rest with that person.
- 02
Specificity of access.
Access to personal data should be defined in terms of what is shared, for what purpose, and for how long, rather than granted in general terms.
- 03
A durable record.
What has been agreed should be recorded in a form that can be examined afterwards by the individual concerned and by the parties relying on it.
- 04
Enforcement by design.
Agreed limits should be applied automatically to each request, rather than depending on the continuing good conduct of the parties.
- 05
Reversibility.
Ending an arrangement should be as straightforward as entering into one.
- 06
Openness.
The specification should be published openly, implementable by any party, and operable without dependence on any particular provider.
Who can sign
Anyone. Individuals, companies, universities, civil society groups, and public bodies are all welcome. Individuals appear as first name and last initial; organisations by name. Your email is never shown.
Individuals sign for themselves rather than their employer. Signing is not a commitment to build anything or a sign-off on every line of the specification, and you can withdraw by email at any time.
Signatures open shortly
We are not taking signatures yet. A register of Supporters means holding people’s details, and we are settling where it will live with LF Decentralized Trust before we ask anyone for theirs.
The most useful thing you can do meanwhile is read the specification and tell us where it is wrong.
Supporters
No signatories are listed yet. The register is published here as soon as the first signature is confirmed.