The Joint Development Foundation, the Decentralized Identity Foundation (DIF) is a 501(c)(6) nonprofit organization established to work with other organizations, industry leaders, and policy makers to help develop a way for people to manage and secure their digital identities.
The foundation acts as a hub where individuals and companies collaborate to create standards and tools for decentralized identity solutions. These efforts are designed to protect an individual’s online information from being hacked or misused.
One area of focus for the foundation is creating practical, open-source code and specifications for decentralized identity technologies that can be utilized by:
DIF utilizes partnerships with other organizations to establish user control over their online identity, also known as the Self-Sovereign Identity (SSI). DIF seeks to organize members in their partnership goals to work towards creating a new identity ecosystem in existing and emerging technologies and data systems, as well as to work with policymakers to establish legislative efforts geared towards the implementation of standards on a broad level.
Examples of DIF's work include: