My research presents an in-depth analysis of the latest evolution of the Identity Ecosystem in the Big Data context, focusing on the economic value of data and identity within the current digital economy which aims at understanding the philosophical, economic and cultural implications of machine- mediated identity systems, focusing on the role of identity in the current economic system, and the way individual and collective identity in the form of personal and social data is mined and analysed through machine learning algorithms to predict future economic and societal trends, in this way redefining financial evaluations. The aggregated data extracted from the analysis of the identity and behavioural patterns of the user, is analysed in depth with the objective of maximising value extraction (e.g. for marketing, social control, and surveillance). A broader investigation and the understanding of the implication of such mechanisms are crucial for the understanding of future knowledge-based economic models and for the design of alternative effective instruments of social interaction.
This research offers an exhaustive multidisciplinary framework, tackling key conceptual issues on the evolution of the concept of identity and its role in the current digital ecosystems. At the same time however, it offers practical and regulative integrated examples of models of self-governance of identity, in the context of the knowledge-based economy. In the current internet digital ecosystem we are observing a battleground between a small number of closed, proprietary, and vertically integrated platforms mainly based in the US. Digital networks represent the space of widespread social cooperation and new forms of democratic organisation and at the same time the new attempt to capture the power of collective intelligence by a capitalism based on the biopolitical production of the common. A few private actors manage the identity, the forms of communication and the social relations of the connected multitude of users. This study investigates how to escape this and claim a free collective production for a wealth that is equally distributed (data commons and privacy-aware identity infrastructures). The internet must remain a social grassroots space for collective intelligence to thrive, and therefore must be re-appropriated to build a new kind of democracy, and to organise a new common.
In order to emphasise the benefit of these alternative models based on the commons it is necessary to move from a transactional paradigm that sees personal data as a new “asset class” to a relational and ecological paradigm that considers social data as a common that can valorise the social cooperation of communities and re-appropriate the collective value generated by citizens and invest it for social good. This requires transforming personal data to social data with the appropriate open technical standards for access control.
This study presents an initial review of the concept of identity alongside a concrete analysis of the economic, policy, and technical alternatives to develop an identity ecosystem and management of data for the common good that respects citizens’ rights, privacy and data protection. This research also presents a map of the key players in the identity industry (such as data brokers and data aggregators), including empirical case studies in key sectors, showing how identity is managed in practice. The socio-economic analysis is tightly integrated with the reflections at a legal and technical level. Technical solutions do not work by themselves, therefore legal and business solutions must be based in technology and integrated with the appropriate policy framework. “On the internet, nobody knows you are a dog”. This is one of the most repeated memes online, and the one that best grasps the problems and promises of digital identity. As we digitise many of our social and economic activities into networked computer systems, simply transferring our basic ideas of identity in the physical world does not work. There are many ways to understand what a digital identity is. Since the beginning of the development of inter-networking protocols, digital identities have been a critical component for these systems to operate. The most basic digital identity on the Internet are the Internet Protocol (IP) addresses that traditionally would uniquely identify a computer. But the technical aspects of online and digital identities have evolved into a huge and very complex field, including authentication, and authorization well beyond network engineering and technical interoperability.
There are many technical committees in international standards organisations such as the World Wide Web Consortium working on identity issues in order to keep the internet and the web running. For an overview of the technical questions around identity please see the D-CENT paper on the State of the Art of identity systems, social networking and social data stores. Being able to guarantee that a system is dealing with the right person behind the computer is a basic requirement for different types of transactions, social, economic, and administrative. Hence governments, banks, social media platforms and many specialist communities building particular types of digital services, from health to e-commerce, have been driving the quest for secure identities. For example, proponents and detractors of online voting for digital democracy elections have their own set of issues and requirements in trying to tell a dog from a genuine voter. The developers and citizens using the D-CENT digital platforms will have to grapple with many of these issues as well. At some level, the need to establish a digital identity becomes a legal requirement, for example on e-government platforms that allow you to apply for a driving license or passport; or simply in online commerce. The elements of identity involved have been termed “transactional identities”, the information required to perform a certain operation.
These could provide a better balance between publicly controlled resources and personal data owned by citizens as commons. For individual Internet users, the current idea of digital identity appears very differently, sometimes simply as a “the permanent collection of data about us that is available online. Each time we post a picture, a blog, a status or a tweet, we are adding to that digital identity. This description will instinctively appeal to most Internet users, particularly those who have only experienced the net mainly through social media platforms. This capacity for self-representation is what has made fluid online identities a key aspect of the promises for freedom of expression brought by the Internet. But there are growing concerns over what happens with that personal information and the potential to cause harm. For example, it is now established that social media postings can affect employment chances. There is also the widespread practice of “doxxing” - sharing someone else’s personal information online in order to discredit them, normally under the argument that the person is some bigot or reactionary which raises huge ethical (and legal) issues. There is a clear conundrum around digital identities in their potential for both freedom and control. These complex social issues have developed into a huge field. There are now whole academic programmes dedicated to digital identities, such as the Nottingham based Horizon centre, with funding for 80 PhD candidates working on this topic. They are looking at themes such as digital identities centred on particular geographical places, personal movement profiles for more sustainable buildings, and digital identities of vulnerable people, such as adult social care.
In addition to those newer themes, there are some recurrent discussions around digital identities that have been around since the birth of the web and constantly resurface. The Anonymity and Accountability debate pits concerns about the dangers of anonymity on one side - from bullying and trolling to crime and terrorism - and in the opposite camp those worried about the impact on freedoms of the reaction towards real identities and calls to make anonymous internet usage impossible. But internet security experts such as Bruce Schenier caution against presenting the dichotomy in too simple terms where trust always requires a persistent identity and anonymity will always lead to a social breakdown.
The debate rages on. It seems that as the number of internet users grow and interactive web and social media platforms allow for more participation we see a corresponding growth in online abuse, in many cases this is directed at women or vulnerable groups. This is why juridical and legal scholars together with technologists of the likes of Tim-Berners Lee are advocating for the need of a new declaration of Internet Rights. This new Magna Carta is now being shaped as a foundational document that should include the protection of personal data and the right to the informational self- determination. It should also include access, neutrality, integrity and inviolability of IT systems and domains, mass surveillance, development of digital identity, rights and guarantees of people on internet platforms, anonymity and right to be forgotten, interoperability, right to knowledge and education, and control over internet governance.
The security and anti-terrorism agenda is another major driver in this debate. The recent rise in Islamic radical online activism of ISIS supporters have led to renewed calls, e.g. by David Cameron, for the security services to be able to monitor personal information online. The leaks by US security contractor Edward Snowden of unprecedented information about the extent of online mass surveillance have sharpened attitudes to these issues, which are some of the defining aspects of digital identities.
Finally, but not less important, is the consideration that the information we leave all around in the physical and digital world is now being exploited through a new economic and technical revolution. Since the first descriptions of the information society, the economic importance of data in the digital economy has grown exponentially. Big data, the Internet of Things, business intelligence, are all terms associated with the attempts to capture the wealth released by the explosion of data generated by devices such as mobile phones or sensors, and by people using social media and the web, but it is not simply a matter of sophisticated analytics building more complete personal profiles based on our data, which is the traditional realm of privacy, our personal information is now used to generate insights - and corresponding monetization of the life of the users - about a myriad other things, ranging from improving internal business processes to finding the cure for cancer. The recent breakthroughs in artificial intelligence by companies such as Google and Baidu hinge on machines being able to learn by being fed masses of information, which we provide when we use these services and generate future economic predictions, while being able to monitor, inform and nudge citizens in real time.
The issues of privacy and freedoms that we introduced above also apply here, but in a more complicated way. For example there are concerns about potential discrimination based on class profiles that do not necessarily require a fully personal identification. Elements of our digital identity, such as ethnicity, age, gender, social media profiles or internet history could be enough to make us receive differential treatment as regards our ability to get a mortgage, a private insurance, or to be able to access public benefits.
There are also issues of economic justice. Ordinary people provide the data that fuels this big data economy, but it is unclear whether the benefits are distributed fairly. Today a handful of non- European internet giants control the entire digital infrastructure from data centres, to Cloud, to social networking and App ecosystems. This raises some shadows about the positive and emancipatory nature of the internet, as the quest for more data has generated unprecedented levels of economic surveillance that have been defined by critiques as “surveillance capitalism”. Almost everything we do on a computer is now expected to be recorded, analysed, and eventually monetized. In this context there is a growing movement of people trying to reclaim the economic, societal and ethical value generated by these processes for the public good.
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