On Friday, April 15, President Obama unveiled a new government proposal/request for how the private sector could and should move to create a more secure environment for online consumers (that's us). This Proposal, The National Strategy For Trusted Identities in Cyberspace, is the White House's blueprint for a solution to growing problem of internet insecurity (with regards to identity theft and fraud).
Essentially what the Proposal is calling for, is for businesses (the private sector) to offer, as a service, the creation and management of a consumer's (that's you and me) online identity. We would therefore provide our information to this "company," and they would, by some- as of yet- undetermined means, communicate with whatever online service we wanted to use, to verify our identity with much greater accuracy than is possible now, for example, by asking you for your mother's maiden name or the name of your fist pet.
The creation of what the White House is calling an "Identity Ecosystem," would mean that we (the consumers) would only need to manage one personal identity for all of our online activities (or at least those we want to use it for). That means no more managing dozens of accounts with different user names and passwords, not to mention the added security, because now your login password isn't what says you are you, the digital fingerprint it carries with it (created by the hypothetical company we now employ) is what verifies our identity. I'm not saying this is a fix all for identity theft, but it will most definitely put a dent in it.
i agree that if there is going to be a feasible solution to identity theft it should come from the private sector but im rather hesitant about the kind of "information" we will have to give them in order for it to work. the decentralization of information allows may make it easier for identity theft but i believe makes it harder for private sector to market to us and know our interests. sounds like this is a ploy to centralize the information and give the private sector more power vs the consumer.
ReplyDeleteThis is a very interesting concept, Seth. All of the information that we have to provide online often becomes unmanageable, and the idea of an "Identity Ecosystem" could help to remedy that problem. However, I am also concerned about what the previous poster said - what type of information will we have to provide to use this service? It's like anything else online I guess - we have to trade convenience for control(Palfrey & Gasser, Born Digital). However, in this case, convenience appears to overlap with control as well.
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