Digital ID Coach » user-driven services

11 Identity Trends

coach — Mon, 31 Jan 2011 20:15:40 +0000

Salvatore D’Agostino at DigitalIDNews posted an article earlier in January, 11 identity trends to watch in 2011, in which he pointed out that despite the proposed National Strategy for Trusted Identities in Cyberspace and the Federal Identity, Credentialing and Access Management Guidance (Draft, PDF), ”national ID programs, social networking, mobile and e-commerce are all moving out on their own.” The author’s list (with my emphasis) includes:

1. Mobile identity always has been and will continue to be the biggest game in town. Each year nearly 5 billion smart card technology subscriber identity modules are sold. And as smart phones grow in sophistication and as a result occupy an increasing percentage of user screen time they will become the most important area in the identity marketplace.

2. None of the Facebook, Google, OpenID, triad will actually manage to issue trusted identities in 2011 and consumers will continue to fail to realize they are the product and not the customer for these and many other identity providers.

7. The User Managed Access work of the Kantara Initiative will gain support as it addresses the overarching requirement of the need for user control of personal information in the era of shared infrastructure.

9. Consumers will demand the adoption and benefits of commercial off-the-shelf application software to provide privacy and identity protection of data at rest and in motion via encryption and secure channels in their day to day communications with banks, health care organizations, and other organizations even in those states where it is not mandated.

11. Identity theft and fraud will continue to grow and be subsidized by consumers via premiums, user fees and interest rates without the mandate for strong interoperable identities. And while the National Strategy for Trusted Identities will talk the talk it remains to be seen if it can walk the walk.

Coaching moment: As passive customers of digital services, we are prone to greater influence and manipulation by the system, for the benefits of the system and not for ourselves. If we wish to empower ourselves–and the commercial marketplace generally–with better and more trustworthy practices, we will need to be active and even vocal supporters of the alternatives that lead us in that preferred direction. This isn’t as scary as it might seem. It just means making certain choices more mindfully, more aware of the cost of “free.”

Portable Identities

coach — Mon, 27 Apr 2009 22:07:54 +0000

There’s a good chance that you’ve signed up for several online accounts, and now you have several different online identities (user names, passwords, and search and purchasing histories). If you use social media tools like LinkedIn or Facebook, Flickr, and Twitter (there are so many more!), you probably spend time socializing and sharing information online every day. One person, many identities. That can be a problem.

Jeremiah Owyang’s post (about a Forrester report) Future of the Social Web, in Five Eras states that:

Today’s social experience is disjointed because consumers have separate identities in each social network they visit. A simple set of technologies that enable a portable identity will soon empower consumers to bring their identities with them — transforming marketing, eCommerce, CRM, and advertising. IDs are just the beginning of this transformation, in which the Web will evolve step by step from separate social sites into a shared social experience. Consumers will rely on their peers as they make online decisions, whether or not brands choose to participate. Socially connected consumers will strengthen communities and shift power away from brands and CRM systems; eventually this will result in empowered communities defining the next generation of products.

I’m particularly interested in one of Owyang’s Five Eras of the Social Web:

4) Era of Social Context: Personalized and accurate content

There is a lot of work being done in this area, giving the power to centrally control and keep accurate information about ourselves. One name for it is “user-driven services.” I’ll be writing more on this very empowering concept in posts to come.

Coaching moment: if you were to collect all of your information in one place then selectively share some of it with various online services, what would that look like? Think about all of the data (searches, emails, tweets, posts, etc.) that you’ve generated this week. Which ones are you happy to share with the public forever? If not everything, what would you protect, for how long, and why?

Who Knows You?

coach — Wed, 11 Mar 2009 19:02:17 +0000

This is an ad from a couple of years ago that Microsoft Digital Advertising Solutions ran.

It’s stunning to see such a clear visual representation of just how out of touch advertisers can be with us. Databases are being compiled by our every move, our every transaction, our every query. The databases are used and sold to assist corporations who wish to manipulate and shape our needs and beliefs (as in, we need their products).

But do we really?

Coaching Moment: What would life be like if you could choose whom you wanted to share information with, which information you wanted to share, and under what conditions the sharing would occur (for example, the duration of their access, or no storing of your data)?

We are not there yet, but there are people working on developing such “user-driven services.”