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DPG Media, Mediahuis Nederland, NPO, RTL Nederland and Talpa Network to collaborate in research into Nederlandse Datakluis.

DPG Media, Mediahuis Nederland, NPO, RTL Nederland and Talpa Network are to work together to investigate a new data infrastructure: a personal data vault. The media organisations share the vision that in a few years’ time, personal and usage data will no longer be stored in providers’ central systems, but in a personal environment of users themselves. With a data vault, the user can have full control over access to his or her data. This ensures better privacy protection and, at the same time, can ensure much better personalisation of services and advertisements because the user can really decide what he or she wants to share with whom, when and for how long.

The media organisations expect this new vision of data and decentralisation of the internet to become commonplace within a few years and therefore want to start the joint research now. To fund the research and development, an application will be prepared for the Nationaal Groeifonds. The central government’s Nationaal Groeifonds is intended to support collaborations that can contribute to the growth capacity of the Dutch economy and have positive social effects. The collaboration takes shape in the Nederlandse Datakluis. Martijn van Dam and Arno Otto will lead the cooperation as directors of this foundation, with a team of specialists from the five organisations.

Martijn van Dam: “The data safe gives users back control over their own data. This is a great innovation for the digital world. Dutch public and commercial organisations can benefit from it and become less dependent on the big tech companies. I have had this development in my sights for a long time and think it is a unique opportunity to start shaping this development together with the five big media organisations in the Netherlands. I am therefore stopping as a director at NPO to be able to fully commit to this.”

Arno Otto: “By making this cooperation a success, the Netherlands can make history. Privacy by design and sound business models go very well together. It still requires a lot of research and development and we hope the Nationaal Groeifonds will want to support that. We can create an innovation in the Netherlands that will be copied internationally. An internet that puts people and creators at the centre – I call it human centric – is the solution to many social and economic challenges. I have been working on this kind of innovation for years and I think we have a gamechanger on our hands with this public-private partnership.”

Eppo van Nispen will become the independent chairman of the foundation’s Supervisory Board. The Supervisory Board will further consist of Mark Minkman on behalf of NPO and Sven Sauvé on behalf of RTL.