What is digital identity?
Definition of digital identity
Digital identity is the set of digital traces a person or an organization leaves on the internet. All of that information, left along the way as people browse, is collected by search engines such as Google and made public. A digital identity, or IDN, can be made of a handle, a name, images, videos, IP addresses, bookmarks, comments, and so on. That online identity therefore influences e-reputation, the way internet users perceive a person. In short, digital identity is the image you send back on the internet, your virtual, dematerialized image.
That virtual identity is built through social networks such as Facebook or Twitter, or through posts on a blog. Websites of every kind also build our identity, which is how you can become known and have an online presence. But those data, which anyone can reach, are a standing risk for users and for the protection of their privacy. Today, information written on the internet is very hard to erase. That is why it is better to think before you leave a digital trace, so you avoid the negative consequences of a poor e-reputation.
Even though Google has put a form in place for right-to-be-forgotten requests, it remains very hard to fill out. The Forget.me platform, though, is a free tool that makes it easier to complete and send takedown requests. In the same vein, Semji offers a service dedicated to removing Google My Business reviews. Tools therefore exist to manage your image and your presence on Google. Laws on digital identity have also been passed to protect users. Recently, CNIL and the Conseil d’État banned a system that tracked pedestrians’ routes for commercial use. CNIL, the French data-protection authority, was created to protect personal data. The commission watches that the internet does not harm users’ privacy.
Even though it fights to protect our digital identities, the notion is still not clearly defined in law.
The different types of digital identity
There are several types of digital identity, matching different categories of information depending on the source, its content, and its author. That information sometimes also circulates without the user’s knowledge, and can harm the integrity of the person or entity it describes.
You can easily create three distinct categories of digital identity, matching different source origins and the information that is disclosed:
Declarative identity
This type of digital identity matches the information the person or entity itself has provided, with various details about the nature of the subject, civil status, and other very factual elements.
Calculated identity
Calculated identity comes from the analyses carried out on acting identity. The conclusions then make it possible to build a profile of the individual, or of a service they are tied to.
Acting identity
Acting identity is determined by the actions the user takes on the web. You can therefore trace them by watching attitudes and habits from their personal account, and from a Facebook friend, for example. Those data are then collected. Bank codes and passwords, to take one illustration, no longer hold any secrets for these sites. Those information stores are also a gold mine for some companies, which use mass data as very instructive commercial statistics. A question then follows: where does the right to privacy and private data stop?
Why protect your digital identity?
In the world before the internet, people’s identity was protected. Today, being always connected makes it hard to manage personal data properly. Cloud computing, for example, is one of the common practices that puts virtual identity at risk. The process stores files on servers such as YouTube, Facebook, Dropbox, or Google Drive. Data, sometimes personal, ends up in the cloud, which can be exposed to risks such as security breaches or hacking. And yet controlling your digital identity is essential.
Recruiters, friends, or colleagues will not hesitate to Google a person’s name to find information. The risk is that digital identity has direct effects on real life. A poor digital identity or e-reputation, with compromising information on the web, can discredit someone during a job search. That is why it is better not to pollute a professional digital identity with information that is too personal.
Microblogging platforms such as Facebook or Twitter let you publish whatever crosses your mind: your activities, your wants, your mood, your complaints. Those short texts can be read by your boss, who may then notice that you are bored at work or that a sick day was a pretext to go out. In the most extreme cases, some people pay for a poor e-reputation for the rest of their lives. Before you publish something on the internet, repeat this line from Warren Buffett: “It takes 20 years to build a reputation and five minutes to ruin it.”
How do you manage your digital identity on the web?
Users are pushed to fill in their profile with as much information as possible if they want strong visibility online. Disclosing all of that information still cannot be done without care. Here are a few reflexes that help you avoid risks to your image and your e-notoriety:
- Manage your privacy settings on social networks
Too many people skip this essential step. Social networks are a large source of information, and the default settings do not protect you enough. Without a few changes, you expose yourself to digital identity theft. Also, do not accept people you do not know into your network. They may have bad intentions toward your information.
- Be wary of what is free
“If it is free, you are the product.” When you browse, like, or search, you give away your consumer choices for free. For private companies, those data are valuable because they help them understand you better in order to sell to you better. Today, browsing without giving any information, personal or not, is almost impossible.
- Change your password
There are fairly simple ways to obtain a password today. Changing it regularly makes that harder and adds a little more security around your personal and professional data. Ideally, you should change your password every three months.
- Do not click on just any link
Phishing is a common technique for collecting information. The cybercriminal impersonates a trusted company or person, either by email or through a fake site. Even though the scam is well known, many people still click dangerous links.
To understand the subject a little better, diagrams of digital identity have been created. They list the categories of information disclosed depending on the sites visited. You now know what sits under IDN, and you have what you need to manage it well.