PICNIC07: Identity 2.0, Dick Hardt

Identity is difficult to describe: blind men and elephants. Contrasts German wikipedia entry for "identity" to UK and Dutch ones. Characteristics by which an individual is identifiable, either of herself or as part of her social group.

Lets you separate one person from a group of people; or it's a bunch of different personas. It lets you predict behaviour based on roles: prior knowledge kicks in when you see someone in a uniform, say.

How is it conveyed? Verbally, requiring trust. Official papers enabling trust on a local scale. Modern identity based around photo ID (passports etc).

Where is it used? ID transactions: party identification (who is this?), authorisation, profile exchange (telling something about yourself). Photo ID reduced friction. There's a lot of privacy (DVLA don't interact with a store I might use my driving license as age ID in).

Attributes of identity.

Identity 1.0 is all about records.

Verified digital identity is not what you give to the site, it's what the site builds up about you (e.g. ebay trading history): you can't carry it around with you.

Identity 2.0: a new architecture for this, elements of which are being used during the Olympics. Simple and open wins. Today, identity is closed, complex and stored in silos by individual sites.

2017: broadband everywhere, cheap storage, more use of electronic storage, mobile, device convergence, digital natives. Minimal passwords, rich portable profiles, portable credentials, rich attributes to share with sites, reputation services, proving you're human (to avoid CAPTCHA),

See also here