An introductory message from Peter Hustinx, European Data Protection Supervisor, delivered at Privacy by Design: The Definitive Workshop. This presentation looks back at the origins of Privacy by Design, notably the publication of the first report on “Privacy Enhancing Technologies” by a joint team of the Information and Privacy Commissioner of Ontario, Canada and the Dutch Data Protection Authority in 1995. It looks ahead and adresses the question of how the promises of these concepts could be delivered in practice.