The Digital Trace

Over the years, we have become permanent guests in our digital spaces.

We hold little of what we produce, and depend on our hosts for much, even for trust. As AI agents and algorithms we do not control increasingly populate these spaces, we believe agency, origin, and attribution are no longer optional.

They are how we keep our place in the digital sphere.

The information we generate comes from us, so it is ours to capture. Once we hold it, we can act on it however we choose. And because all our activity runs through us, we are also the best-placed party to supply evidence about it.

This may sound obvious, but the means to do all this, conveniently, from one place, have been missing so far, for evidence above all.

We are building the Digital Trace, software you run on your own devices. Open-source, free to use, integrate and extend. It captures your activity privately and keeps it under your control. Your activity becomes your building blocks, from a personal memory to models of your own. You can share or license it on your terms, produce verifiable claims about it, and check those others make about theirs.

The Digital Trace is an opportunity to create value and to credit those it came from. It is firmer ground in our digital lives. It is a way to become citizens, not guests, of our digital spaces.

Luca Franceschi, Jose Carrasco
and the Digital Trace initiative

Art by Hani Kim