A Governance & Transparency Framework
Our faces are not
free data points.
Every day, commercial systems capture, process and profit from biometric data without the knowledge or consent of the people it belongs to.
No law adequately prevents this. No fine has stopped it. The governance gap is real, documented and widening.
The MyFace Biometric Sovereignty Standard exists because this is wrong and because it is fixable.
Every citizen protected from the moment of registration. No action required. Protection is the starting point, not the destination.
Permission is the exception. Commercial entities must demonstrate legitimate value before they may request it.
Every verification request logged immutably. Accessible to citizens, entities and governance bodies. Transparency is structural.
My identity. My choice. My control.
Core Principles
Protection by Default
Every citizen is protected from commercial biometric processing from the moment of registration. No action required to protect what already belongs to you.
Explicit Consent
Commercial access requires explicit, informed and revocable consent granted to specific entities for specific stated purposes. Permission is the exception.
Demonstrated Value
Entities must prove legitimate value before requesting permission. The burden of proof lies with those who wish to process, not with those who would be processed.
Full Transparency
Every verification request, every permission granted, every revocation logged immutably and accessible to citizens, entities and governance bodies.
Meaningful Enforcement
Processing a protected biometric is a criminal matter. The era of fines absorbed as operational costs is over. Enforcement must be consequential.
Open Standard
The protocol is open source, blockchain-based and internationally interoperable. Any nation may adopt it. No single authority controls it.
The Documents
Why?
The case for the standard. What is true, what is happening, and what must change.
The Proposal
A complete governance and transparency framework for biometric identity. Architecture, implementation pathway, international framework and the ask.
API Specification
The open technical standard for implementing MyFace Biometric Sovereignty Standard. RESTful API, W3C Verifiable Credentials, blockchain audit trail. Version 1.0.
A citizen-originated framework
The MyFace Biometric Sovereignty Standard was developed by Toby Dupres, a UK citizen and web developer, in response to the observable and documented failure of existing governance frameworks to adequately protect biometric data.
It is not affiliated with any organisation, political party or commercial interest. It carries no funding and seeks none. It is offered freely under Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 to any person, organisation or government that wishes to adopt, adapt or build upon it.
The only condition is attribution. The only goal is that this gets done.