The Many Faces of Our Digital Identity

Since the beginning of this blog, I've often tackled the issue of Digital Identity. In short, I've most often griped about the methods in which various systems and services have not only requested it, but also what they ask for.

As a database programmer, I've tried to offer some keen insight into why these services are almost forced to marginilize our identity, not to mention our humanity, to accomplish their goals. Without boiling us down to empircal data that can ne normalized, categorized, and indexed, searching and archiving are daunting tasks, to say the least.

Yesterday, two interesting nuggets appeared to me that got me thinking about something that I overlooked. First there was an article, then there was an e-mail from David Teten of Online Business Networks with a simple question: "Why don't you have an About Me page? What prompted that decision?"

There's a short answer to that question, which I'll send along to David shortly, however that's not the answer I am giving here. Instead, I was prompted to consider the changes in our behavior that occur as a result of having these new digital identies. Specifically, I realized that I could see many different identies in action already (Public, Protected, Projected, Disposable, and Residual).

Public Identity

The identity we disclose in any number of venues that we not only know to be true but also expect others to accept as an accurate representation of ourselves.

We've become too familiar with this form of identity. It's the information we surrender for our free e-mail services, the majority of our social networking applications, and particularly for the purchases we make.

Just yesterday, Peter Caputa began to amplify a grassroots effort for standardizing on Blogger Bios - public identity for bloggers.

Protected Identity

The identity we disclose when we have the assurance that we are in control of not only what we present but also who we choose to have it presented to.

Though in shorter supply, we're more comfortable when we feel we're in control, despite the potential illusion. The most common area where this occurs is within secure online applications such as banking, auctions, and the like. In recent times, we've seen this begin to appear in social networking applications such as Friendster and Lemontonic.

Projected Identity

The identity we imagine for ourselves and actively nurture; the identity we align ourselves with, despite our dissimilarity from it.

There's no shortage of Projected Identities. Anyone that has ever maneuvered through an online dating site like Match.com can attest to the intense amount of identity manipulation that runs rampant. More recently, we've seen a couple of examples in the blogging world in the form of Belle de Jour and Layne Johnson.

Disposable Identity

The identity we conjure for instances where we're not convinced of the validity or requirement of the entity requesting our identity.

For quite some time, identities had more permanence. We didn't have access to create them with ease or convenience, so we were most likely more "honest". As of late, however, the Disposable Identity scene has exploded. First, we simply faked information, then companies like MailExpire.com gave us fake mail accounts, and now we've got things like BugMeNot.com that allow us to literally share Disposable Identities.

Residual Identity

The identity we leave behind as we interact with the world from the vantage point of one of our other identities. As we visit sites, create new content, and react to commentary we perpetuate the memory of that identity.

I've previously covered the methods that blogs are contributing to our long-term persistence with Google at the reins. Recently, danah boyd pointed to a very interesting article that demonstrated the true reach of our Residual Identity. The article deals with the issues that arise when someone passes away and the ripples that occur through their online network and the challenges of managing their Residual Identities. As the article concludes:

Vast numbers of pages containing digital references to deceased people, created for that purpose or not, float in cyberspace waiting for someone to update or remove them. It isn't difficult to imagine a virtual world in which Web browsers have to sift through oceans of data left behind by the dead. In fact, it's already happening.

Source: CityPaperOnline, "Ghosts in the Machines" via apophenia