--Originally published at Digital Identity
The concept of digital Identity is based on the concept of personal identity or simply identity, that are the set of traits, characteristics, ideas, opinions, and basically the personality that make us different from the others. Some people might share some of our characteristics and opinions, but that doesn’t mean it will share the same identity. The term digital involves everything that has to do with electronic devices, telecommunications and the use of technology. Therefore, the term digital identity means the identity we have or we share with the use of technology or communications. Much simpler the identity we have online, on the internet.
Personal Identity vs Digital Identity
Personal identity
- Is document based: Identity is based on physical documents.
- Isolated: Information is not interconnected and do not enable aggregation.
- Inflexible: Identity is codified in documents as a limited and standardized set of information.
Digital identity
- Digital Based: Identity exists as a set of digital records.
- Interconnected: Identity can be communicated between entities in a standardized digital format.
- Flexible: Identity systems adapt to the nature of the transaction.
Both types of identity have their own benefits and problems, and depending on the situations many times we might require one, or another or even both of them.(World Economic Forum, 2016)
The actual situation
Nowadays people are subject to be found easily over the internet, especially when they work for a company, as a teacher in a school, as a doctor, as a researcher or if they use social media, that means almost everyone can be found on internet within a few clicks. This opens a lot possibilities and problems at the same time.
Talking of benefits
- Many companies use the internet to find people that are suitable for a job.
- It allows many transactions being more efficiently and quicker that to attend to a certain place.
- It helps us to contact people almost at any time.
The controversy
- It seems usual to hear about photos being stolen or personal information being used for something without an authorization that it makes people feel unsafe by using internet or giving the data to the companies. “Along with use of personal data, the concerns of people have also grown. The majority of individuals have concerns about the use of personal data by companies.” (Boston Consulting Group, 2012). BCG ‘s representative survey of more than 3,000 European consumers revealed that 88% of people who are online consider at least one industry or sector a threat to their privacy.
- Sometimes internet is used to ruin others identity and may have a very negative impact in his future social life.
- Some people think that internet relationships are different to face to face ones in the way that some values don’t apply, this causes a lot of problems.
Brief conclusion
The use of technology can help us to relate with other people easily, it opens the door to a lot of possibilities and opportunities speaking of the areas of economics, social and education. We should use the internet considering that the values and respect we have in “real life “also apply on our online relations and consider that every action can have a bigger consequence that if done face to face because it stays for longer and is easy to be seen by all.
References and readings
Boston Consulting Group. (2012, November). The Value of Our Digital Identity. Retrieved September 26, 2016, from http://www.libertyglobal.com/PDF/public-policy/The-Value-of-Our-Digital-Identity.pdf
World Economic Forum. (2016). A Blueprint for Digital Identity. Retrieved September 26, 2016, from http://www3.weforum.org/docs/WEF_A_Blueprint_for_Digital_Identity.pdf
