The Human Identity Foundation is being established to defend a single principle: that the attributes, behaviors, communications, and biometric traces of a person belong to that person alone. It will be organized as a Swiss foundation under Articles 80 et seq. of the Civil Code so that this principle may be held in trust — beyond the reach of any company, government, or successor — for as long as the institution endures.
Whereas the Founder believes that every natural person possesses an inherent and inalienable right to ownership and control of personal data describing them — including all attributes, characteristics, behaviors, communications, biometric markers, and digital traces that identify or are associated with that person;
Whereas the Founder wishes to establish a permanent institution that will defend this principle in perpetuity, independent of any commercial, political, or personal interest, and immune from acquisition, dilution, or repurposing by any third party;
Whereas the Founder draws inspiration from the Hans Wilsdorf Foundation of Carouge, Switzerland, and the broader tradition of industrial foundations in Northern Europe, which have demonstrated that charitable purpose and commercial excellence can be united through an irrevocable ownership structure;
Now, therefore, the Founder intends to establish the Human Identity Foundation under Articles 80 et seq. of the Swiss Civil Code on the terms set forth herein, subject to counsel review and the pre-clearance of the competent supervisory authority.
Once constituted, the Foundation will be the permanent owner of itself. It will not be capable of being sold, merged, or wound up by any future board, donor, or government. Its statutes will be amendable only within the narrow limits of the Civil Code — and only insofar as such amendment serves the purpose set out in the Preamble.
This is the same legal architecture that has preserved the Hans Wilsdorf Foundation since 1945, and that sustains the Northern European tradition of industrial foundations: a charitable mission held inside a perpetual owner, accountable to a public authority and no one else.
The intended group will follow a three-tier form — Foundation → Holding Company → Operating Company — with the Foundation holding one hundred per cent of voting control and approximately three quarters of the economic rights at the holding level.
The choice of legal form is not incidental. A foundation under Swiss law has no owners — no shareholders, no members, no residual claimants. Its purpose is fixed by deed and policed by a federal authority. It survives its founder, its board, and the century in which it was created.
The purpose of the Foundation cannot be altered by the people who inherit it. That is the entire point.
We are following the example of the Hans Wilsdorf Foundation, which has owned Rolex SA in perpetuity since 1945, and the broader Northern European tradition — the Carlsberg, Novo Nordisk, and Bertelsmann foundations among them — in which a charitable purpose is held inside a permanent, non-tradeable owner.
The Human Identity Foundation will adapt that architecture to a different subject: not a manufacturer, not a publisher, but the principle that a person owns themselves. The structure is the safeguard. Everything else — the research, the advocacy, the litigation — will be carried out within it.
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If you believe in the principle set out in Article I, there is a place for you here. Practitioners, scholars, public servants, technologists, patient capital, and private citizens are all welcome to write. Tell us who you are and how you would like to be involved — the rest is a conversation.
Foundation and trust counsel in Switzerland, Denmark, or Liechtenstein to pre-clear the purpose clause with the supervisory authority and formalize the deed. Drafters, notaries, comparativists — write in.
Founding council members, standing advisors, and patient capital partners for the initial endowment. The Foundation will not solicit public donations; founding support is by invitation and by deed.
Researchers, litigators, policy specialists, and operators who would like to carry out the Foundation's work once it is constituted — in advocacy, in research, or in the operating companies it will own.
If you have read this far and the principle resonates — even if you do not see a formal role for yourself — write to us. Letters of support, critique, and counsel shape the deed as much as anything else.
Plain text is appreciated. We read every letter. We answer most.