Identity Management

There is nothing more important online than your identity, and nothing more annoying than when someone finds a way to steal it. This list comprises 25+ tools to manage your reputation, officially sign documents, aggregate your social network IDs and more.

“The question of the role of identity in the internet is absolutely key and has risen to public consciousness for so many different reasons.” These were the words of Kim Cameron, architect of identity at Microsoft and opening keynote speaker at ISSE Conference 2016 in Paris today.

How should you manage your online identity in an era in which all your communications and activities are being tracked both online and offline? First, realize that you don’t control your online identities. An identity is bestowed on you as part of a process that is controlled by an entity with whom you have a relationship, e.g., a bank, government, or social network. Second, be mindful of what you say and do online. It’s all discoverable.

Identity theft affects as many as 1.8million Britons a year and, worryingly, some people are even paid to rifle through your rubbish. We take a look at ways you can protect yourself from being the next ID victim…

My recent article about online identity, “How to Think about Privacy and Managing Your Online Identity” discussed the fact that we don’t own our identities, as they are simply identifiers inside processes that we don’t control. My proposition was that because we can’t control the processes that control our identities, we only have limited scope for control.