About the Global Authentic Memory Initiative
The Global Authentic Memory Initiative develops open cryptographic infrastructure for the long-term authenticity of historical digital records. Operated by Authentic Memory gUG, a registered German non-profit, the project works with archives, memorial sites, and media institutions to ensure that humanity's historical record remains trustworthy across decades in which synthetic content will become indistinguishable from recorded material.
The infrastructure is developed in close exchange with these institutions and with an academic advisory board that brings together the political, educational, and technical perspectives on this work.
- Founded
- November 2025
- Based in
- Munich, Germany
- Registration
- HRB 312015 · Amtsgericht München
- Status
- Tax-exempt non-profit · §§ 51 ff. AO
Team
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Pablo Toussaint
Founder & Director
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Rosa Bauer
Communications & Partnerships Lead
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Florimon Poisson
Co-Founder & Technical Advisor
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Michael Rilk
Software Engineer
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Brandon Lee
Strategy & Development
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Ella Prisco
Institutional Partnerships & Outreach
Academic Advisory Board
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Vice President & Professor for Information Systems
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John Foster Dulles Professor of International Affairs
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Professor for Holocaust Education
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Professor for Coding and Cryptography
Governance & Ethics
Mission-locked
Authentic Memory gUG recognised as a non-profit under German law, legally bound to its mission under §§ 51 ff. AO, which includes a statutory asset lock (§ 61 AO), and a selflessness requirement (§ 55 AO) that prohibits using organisational resources for private benefit.
No commercial dependencies
Funded by public grants, foundations, and institutional partnerships. Never by selling access to data, and with no investors holding profit expectations. There is no mechanism by which our incentives can drift away from the institutions we serve.
Open by default
The verification toolchain, proof-record format, and integration code are designed to be released as open source under permissive licences. The index is mirrorable; verification can be performed without any dependency on us, including offline.
Hashes only
Original files never leave the institution. We only store cryptographic fingerprints computed locally through a one-way mathematical function, from which no information about the underlying material can be extracted.
Institution-held keys
The cryptographic key that signs an institution's proofs remains entirely with the institution. We never hold it. No central authority — including us — can produce a valid proof on behalf of a partner.
Designed to outlast us
Verification rests on published standards and a public, distributed ledger — not on the continued existence of GAMI. Existing proofs remain valid even if we cease operating.
Multi-stakeholder governance
Currently overseen by a non-profit executive structure with an academic advisory board. As GAMI scales, we intend to expand into a multi-stakeholder model — drawing in memory institutions, academic representatives, and civil-society stewards — so that the infrastructure is governed by the communities whose collections it protects.
Where We Stand
A short, honest account of where the project is, what is operational, and what is next.
Foundation
Architecture, mission-lock and incorporation
Grounded in extensive collaboration with leading scholars and memory institutions, we defined an architecture that addresses real institutional needs, built the core cryptographic modules that implement it, and formally incorporated Authentic Memory as a non-profit.
First Pilots
Anchoring real institutional collections
With the foundation in place, we are now running the first live integrations with our institutional partners, testing the pipeline against real archival collections and refining the operational workflows that will carry into broader deployment.
Open Infrastructure & Long-Term Governance
Public verifier, open source, and international scale
The long-term goal is a truly public infrastructure — open toolchain, mirrorable index, and a public verification interface woven into the archival and provenance ecosystems where the world's most important collections live. Governed by the institutions, researchers, and civil-society stewards who depend on it. Creating the infrastructure humanity's historical record can rest on.