Cloud your Identity: Identity & Privacy

Globalization, mobility and international terrorism have contributed to the widespread demand for the unambiguous identification of individuals and information concerning ‘who is who’. National governments and international business are investing heavily in methods to ascertain the precise identity of citizens and consumers and learn as much as possible about them. Each individual in the Western world is represented in hundreds of databases, and these digital representations are often assumed to be adequate for a rapidly growing number of applications. Categories, labels, descriptions and models are used to represent people. More and more organizations act on the basis of the representations of people that they obtain from computer files, datasets or profiles. I shall show that identity has become a crucial notion in our modern lives. Furthermore I shall articulate what is morally disconcerting about the fact that others than oneself are to a certain extent in charge of our identities by means of technology. I discuss four types of moral reasons for placing constraints on the management of identity-related information. The analysis points in the direction of Privacy and Identity Management by Design.

M.J. van den Hoven

27-4-2010 08:20:00