Posted 10:43 AM

What is Identity

And what do I come back to? Kim Cameron has finally decided to tackle a topic that should have preceded his Laws of Identity - thedefinition of identity!

According to Cameron:

A digital identity is a set of claims made by one digital subject about itself or another digital subject.

That may well be true, but it's so insipid as to serve as a definition of nothing. Kim goes on to prove this by excerpting others' definitions and alleging that his definition can stretch to cover.

I can "claim" many things about myself - I can claim I'm 30 years old, six foot four, blonde, 195 pounds with blue eyes and an engaging smile. Just because I claim it, though, doesn't make it so. And, at bottom, an "identity" needs to be accurate.

Even in a single digital context (one instance of a web site, say) an identity also needs to be unique.

Accurate and unique - two qualities I think any identity, especially a digital identity, needs to account for.