Digital identity
Last updated
Last updated
As Wikipedia says,
“a digital identity is information on an entity used by computer systems to represent an external agent. That agent may be a person, organisation, application, or device”.
A digital identity has information which permits the user to be authorised to interact online with a business system without the need of human work or implication. Also, this information allows computers to intercede in relationships created online.
The concept “digital identity” is also used for the identification of people in civil and personal terms in the web. This happens due to the spread of online representation of people.
The uses of the Internet have changed and, nowadays, civil or national data is often required to access some sites or to get to some content. People's identification has become so important in some online sites, that the term “digital identity” is changing its definition. It know includes all the information that a person gives with his or her activity on the Internet: passwords, Google searches, online shopping, birth data, etc. All those elements form a user’s identity. It is due to this definition change that another term has emerged: the online identity.
The identity created by users in online communities is what we call the online identity, also called Internet identity or Internet persona. It is the presentation of each user. Users do not always use their real names in that communities, they prefer to use nicknames, which often reveals some relevant personality information about them. Social relationships are very determinant for the creation of an Internet identity.
In addition, the identity of those users is not only represented by their nicknames. They can also have kind of a “physical representation” of themselves called avatar. With their avatars users establish interaction with other users of online communities.
Personally identifiable information, sensitive personal information or personal information is data that can be used to connect, search out or recognise a person.
Not surprisingly, that personal information is easier to find on the Internet which has brought many issues. Personal information can be used with criminal objectives, so many websites have been working on privacy policies to ensure that information is safe and difficult to access.
The digital footprint or digital shadow is the combination of “digital activities, actions, contributions and communications” done by a user on the Internet. There are two types of digital footprints: passive and active. The first one refers to the data collected without the user's knowledge. The second one is the one contains the information that the user has been searching and the activities that he or she has done deliverately.
Digital footprints have become an issue in terms of digital privacy, security and reputation. The private information those footprints contain can be used by companies in whatever way they want.
