Welcome

This is a holding website for PIB-d Ltd.

PIB-d Ltd is a joint-venture, set up in 2011, when the founders of a private-sector start-up (Edentity) folded that company into a joint-venture with the UK’s Higher Education sector, as represented by Jisc (30%) and one university (19%). InnovateUK kindly provided a grant to subsidize costs.

In 2012, PIB-d conducted a (successful) technical feasibility study for what we now call the User Control of Data (UCD) proposal. Later that same year, PIB-d was made dormant because it was then clearly impractical to make further progress while a Cabinet Office project, gov.uk Verify, dominated everyone’s attention in the digital identity field.

In 2020, when gov.uk Verify was on its last legs, PIB-d woke-up, promptly won a further grant from InnovateUK, and used the money to set up UCDx, a community interest company with a remit to act as an advocate for, and potential governance body of, the proposed new digital infrastructure.

If UCD progresses to the next stage, PIB-d Ltd is likely to resume its role as the development company for the infrastructure, acting under the terms of a concession contract to be negotiated with UCDx.

UCDx’s website is now the best place to find out more about the UCD proposal. The remaining pages on this website have not been touched for a while, and so may – in at least some respects – be out of date.

August 2024.