Why Are There So Many Digital Identities?

Abstract

This article analyses why people have so many digital identities and offers suggestions to reduce the numbers to more reasonable levels.  Digital identity thinking has been dominated by the objective of general-purpose reusable identity as a response to the unwieldy profusion of identifiers that came with expanding ecommerce. The notion of reusable digital identity is somewhat intuitive, energised by the mental model of humans exercising a virtual self in cyberspace. Many user interfaces are constructed to exhibit an intentional stance suggestive of humans having a digital counterpart making our digital actions more lifelike and comprehensible.

In some nations, there is a precedent for national identity, which makes general-purpose digital identity culturally more logical, even appealing. In common law countries, however, the market for reusable digital identity is still not mature. To date, there is no solid business case for general purpose reusable identity - largely because it proves costlier than expected to reengineer transactional identifiers to align (or federate) with an intuitive singular digital identity. Thus, individuals must manage many siloed, special purpose identifiers, account names, passwords, and piecemeal authenticators.

If transactional identifiers go hand in hand with transaction systems, then there will likely remain a need for about as many identifiers as there are transactional services. Recent technology developments, especially in cryptographic verifiable credentials and mobile digital wallets, may provide ways to automate the management of multiple identifiers and achieve the desired usability anticipated from singular identity without disrupting the forces that have led to transaction specific identification.