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Concept
Digital identity
Summary
Digital identity refers to the information utilized by computer systems to represent external entities, including a person, organization, application, or device. When used to describe an individual, it encompasses a person's compiled information and plays a crucial role in automating access to computer-based services, verifying identity online, and enabling computers to mediate relationships between entities. Digital identity for individuals is an aspect of a person's social identity and can also be referred to as online identity.
The widespread use of digital identities can include the entire collection of information generated by a person's online activity. This includes usernames, passwords, search history, birthday, social security number, and purchase history. When publicly available, this data can be used by others to discover a person's civil identity. It can also be harvested to create what has been called a "data double", an aggregated profile based on the user's data trail across databases. In turn, these data doubles serve to facilitate personalization methods on the web and across various applications.
If personal information is no longer the currency that people give for online content and services, something else must take its place. Media publishers, app makers and e-commerce shops are now exploring different paths to surviving a privacy-conscious internet, in some cases overturning their business models. Many are choosing to make people pay for what they get online by levying subscription fees and other charges instead of using their personal data.
An individual's digital identity is often linked to their civil or national identity and many countries have instituted national digital identity systems that provide digital identities to their citizenry.
The legal and social effects of digital identity are complex and challenging. Faking a legal identity in the digital world may present many threats to a digital society and raises the opportunity for criminals, thieves, and terrorists to commit various crimes.
Official source
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