🆔Tech Perspective

The internet was designed without identity in mind.

Fragmentation, UX & verification

• A fragmented and siloed identity within a single provider means there is limited access to the data, which reduces the space for collaboration, and limits the re-usability of the data.

• There is no way of determining what verification the provider went through to collect it, which minimises the validity of the data, reducing the ability of users to take their identity and its makeup elsewhere for verification.

• Without verification, there is no trust in the identity, and ultimately, a lack of opportunity for an untrusted, unverified identity.

• Although federated logins do fix the UX of navigating between platforms, there remains an interoperability issue around taking one's full identity into these platforms, meaning users will need to create fragmented sub-identities everywhere they go.

Agency, control, and power imbalances.

• A lack of agency and ownership around a user's identity is another large issue within centralised and federated architectures. Although handing over the responsibility of managing one's data and identity can be appealing, one also forgoes the control they have over it. The data now lives on a database only accessible by the organisation holding it.

• This creates a power imbalance between users and platforms, as the owners of said systems own the identities of their users. Facebook can share your data, Google can target you based on your browsing history, and a bank can freeze your accounts.

• The data and identities do not belong to the users, and one finds themselves at the mercy of technology providers who can limit their online behaviour.

The most significant problem, however, is the competitive environment it creates between technology providers, all looking for their share of data, which in recent years has become a valuable asset in the world of marketing. The value of this data is given through the accuracy of its ability to profile the user behind the identity. Once a user has been profiled, technology providers can target advertisements at the user, and monetise their services through the world of advertising. In order to collect this data, one needs to understand user behaviour, for which one needs a user on their platform for as long as possible. This has created financial incentives to keep users on platforms, which has led to sticky, gamified design patterns, which ultimately drain a human's attention, weighing on our ability to focus over longer periods of time.