Me and my identity is the identity of the self, and each individual is the starting point for interacting with digital systems. The community of professionals focused on user-centric identity, at the Internet Identity Workshop, has this focus at the center of their work. It is in this domain that the individual might have control of their own identifiers, their own servers, and collect their own data (Figure 1.1).

What Is Identity?

Discussions about identity can get very philosophical quickly. There is an enormous body of work that covers this terrain stretching back to the origins of humanity. This description will touch on a very brief overview that is rooted in Western philosophical thought. An avenue for future research is exploring how different philosophical traditions (Indigenous, Africa, Asian, Feminist, etc.) can inform the development of digital identity systems.

Who is “me” and what does “my identity” mean?

“Me” is a “self,” that is, an individual referring to the same individual.

The word “identity” comes from the Latin word from “sameness.” This is the underlying frame of identity in the Western tradition. Locke's theory of mind articulates this modern notion of the self that is a persistent consciousness through time.

Some challenges arise applying this to digital identity because while persistent identifiers are viewable, third parties can't see into individual's persistent consciousness through time. The modern industrial states have had to invent a notion of identity that can be assigned and be based on observations by third parties over time where the observations get recorded in databases.

Individuals have identities composed of a whole range of characteristics. We interact with a wider world and project “a self” to a wider world with various actions. This dramaturgical model of human life in society was developed by Erving Goffman in his book The Presentation of Self in Everyday Life.

There are two theories that prevail in the literature about the interplay of the self in the social world. Identity Theory sees the meaning derived from roles one plays in social contexts and Social Identity Theory sees the meaning derived from belonging to groups.