Who-am-I.COM?
In scientific form digital identity would state as: “Information on an entity used by computer systems to represent an external agent. That agent may be a person, organisation, application, or device. (source Wikipedia.org)” Now what does that mean to most of us?
It simply states that there is almost no one who has no digital identity because we are all enlisted in some form of digital databases. Those databases can be used from information that we enlisted for websites like Facebook, Instagram or simply by opening an email address via Gmail. Those databases usually contain simple info about us without financial information and are used to represent an image we create about us.
Some databases are simply made without our consent like does that government uses: Birth certificate, address info, ID information, real estate deeds, car insurance, dental records etc. Those are used so that organs of government can do a simple and fast checkups on us to determine our real identity or the state of our finance, legal obligations etc.
Most people today see digital identity as a form of what can someone, without government issue, find out about us using tools like Facebook, Google and many others. If you have a very public digital identity a regular web user can easily find your home address, your phone number and even see pictures of you. Average user simply post information about him on a regular bases such as what he is doing, what he likes or where he is in current time. All those information can be used in criminal actions for all sort of fraud or simply be useful to burglars to check are you at your house currently.
Burglars today often “screen” victims online via social networks, look for precious items on photos, view pictures of alarm systems and look up new geo tags posted by victim. If the victim “tags” himself on a vacation that is just a trigger the house is empty and the robbery can start.
Other types of frauds are concentrated on identity theft. Those identity, depending on how valuable they are, can be sold on the black market. After they have been sold they can be used for all sorts of criminal acts like opening a credit line, false representing or human trafficking.
15.4 million consumers were victims of identity theft or fraud last year, according to a new report from Javelin Strategy & Research. That’s up 16 percent from 2015, and the highest figure recorded since the firm began tracking fraud instances in 2004.
“All of the underlying types of fraud we measure are up,” said Al Pascual, a senior vice president and research director for Javelin.
Identity theft, fraud cost consumers more than $16 billion in 2016, and that mostly happens because our password “hygiene” is poor. We use same weak password to protect access to all of our digital services and those services contain enough information about us for someone who wants to duplicate our digital identity.
The first thing you must do is protect your personal information. There are companies, such as ZeroKnowledge (http://www.zeroknowledge.com ), who have developed privacy solutions that can help preserve your personal information, and protect you from web pages and applications that attempt to remove your personal information from your computer without your consent. It’s amazing how much can be learned about a person from something as seemingly mundane as a phone number. Online people-finder services (such as http://www.AnyWho.com or http://www.1800USSearch.com) are making it increasingly easy for a would-be thief to take your phone number, enter it online and discover your full legal name, as well as your current and past addresses.
Once an identity thief has your name and address, they can go to one of the so called “online detective” sites, pay a small fee and get a lot more information about you. Some sites even offer to find Social Security Numbers based solely on name and address. (Losing Yourself: Identity Theft in the Digital Age, 2002.)
In the future our digital identity is going to become our main source of defining ourselves, it will determine who we are. Such a way of functioning will ask for:
· More mobility
· Greater demand for security and trust
· An accelerating shift towards smart cities
· More calls for public supervision of digital identification systems
· Even more e-ID programs such as “e-Građanin (e-Citizen)” in Croatia
In case of “e-Građanin” we can see how our digital identity can be used to help us identify ourselves to AI technologies such as Intelligent agents. After identification intelligent agents give us all the info we need and by such they replace regular government workers. BI and AI technologies used in this case are simply algorithms and web applications used to help us mine the web for info.
Digital identity should not be considered just in case of people because all of the companies in the world have some sort of digital identity. Some use it to communicate to customers or simply to be present online. It is a great way to build a positive image about them and represent the brand as a solution to apotential problem.
