What is digital identity?
April 19th, 2002 by jiri
What is digital identity?
“You walk into your neighborhood watering hole. If they are in accordance with the laws of the land, they’ll ask to see an ID — most likely a driver’s license. This driver’s license isn’t *actually* your identity, rather it is an authentication of certain attributes of your identity. For verification that you are who you say you are, the bartender might also look at the picture on the ID and then look at you. You’ve been authenticated and verified, now a transaction may take place” [digitalidworld]
Eric Norlin’s example cited above reminds me to the best explanation of the topic I have seen, in Code and Other Laws of Cyberspace, which is perhaps even several steps further ahead in terms of quality. From the technical point of view, Digital Identity includes (1) authentication details (2) authorisation details and (3) personal preferences. Each of the data subset is used for different purpose, by different functions and have different security requirements.