Civil society registration happens when individuals begin relationships with any number of institutions: professional associations, nonprofit membership groups, religious congregations, sports leagues, and so forth. We also include educational and health care contexts in which people are patients and students. While some of these institutions are “for profit,” the nature of the transactional relationships suggests that it makes more sense to include these types of transactions in this domain (Figure 5.1). The first step is for the individual to go through a registration process possibly filling out forms. Once the organization has accepted those and created a record in their systems the organization issues a credential to the individual.

Relationship to Other Domains

Many civil society registration processes require claims verified by documents that are derived from government registration. Before interacting with a civil society organization in an ongoing way, a civil society transactions registration with that organization is required. Some employment registration processes require certification or verification from civil society organizations derived from civil society registration and transactions. Data from civil society organizations is sold to the data broker industry. Data is vulnerable to theft and appearing on the illicit market.

What Is the Process of Enrollment?

To register in any system, one has to first enroll in it. How does this happen in civil society institutions? For the sake of having a common vocabulary, we will call the subject a member, but they could be a patient, student, or some other term depending on the type of institution.

Our first interaction with civil society institutions is often when we are born: we become a patient in a health care institution.

When we are enrolling children in institutions, we are asked to share with the institution a copy of an “identity primitive” contained on a birth certificate. This is for several purposes including the need to know a child's real age, to know that the parents presenting are indeed the parents of the child being enrolled. These institutions may also request to see state-issued identity documents from the parents (as listed on the birth certificate) as well.