What is DI?
BY Mike Parslow
Mike is a retired research scientist & market research professional. The following is his personal view of DI & the web that he has adapted from his presentation to SPARC delegates at Reading University in April.

What does the average pensioner make of Digital Identity? (S)he’s watched Frost & Morse, might know the Government talks about the digital divide and need for inclusion, but Digital Identity ?

To add to the confusion there is the ID card scheme; we remember ration cards and NI cards, some of us can remember our NI and co-op numbers!

Digital Identity has been defined as “the persona that an individual presents across all the online communities in which one is represented”. This used to mean the persona that you created when you went online and registered and commented on websites; however it is more complex than that in the modern usage of the Web. The phrase Web 2.0 means the interactive social use of the Web, so others can refer to (tag) you on their web input, and this is all aggregated by search engines to give you a Digital Identity.

Even if you have contributed nothing, there is still likely to be an online identity ascribed to your name. Those who are feeling most vulnerable have little to protect except their name, and they want to keep control. However your identity is already out there on the Web - if you have access, search the Web for your name (in quotes).

When I perform this exercise Google, gratifyingly, brings up many entries that really are for me, and not some other Mike Parslow, on the first page of search results - I didn’t even tweak the search engine. My alter ego, a rat catcher in Norfolk also called Mike Parslow who has cropped up when I’ve done this in previous years, seems to have disappeared.

This is just one example of my ‘identity’ according to a Google search on ‘Mike Parslow’ (fig 1.)

I guess I am a little shy, so my ‘rants’ on chat pages do not appear under my full name, but under one or other of my aliases. This seems to be a common practice for commentators online.

Comments

8th May 2010 03.11pm

Catspaw

Just tried this out and was furious to discover that my name, postcode, email address, mobile no. and partial contents of my email to my local MP, are revealed in the search results for all to see. Clicking on the result gives me this: "Oops this link appears to be broken ....". So no way for me to contact the webmaster to request that the content is removed. Therefore, have emailed my MP's local assistant on this - now I'm wondering if my latest email will start to show up in search results too!!!

 

8th May 2010 03.19pm

Catspaw

On doing a second search and getting the Oops broken link message, I noticed an option to view a cached page. Guess what? Over 50 emails showed up, all with full personal details and full content of the emails to the MP. I'm relatively lucky because my own email wasn't detailing my own personal circumstances; however, a lot of the other constituents' emails were doing just that. From that webpage, I've managed to find the name and email address of somebody who appears to have something to do with the website, so I've emailed him about it.

 

8th May 2010 06.12pm

Catspaw

I got an email back from my MP, saying sorry, he hasn't a clue how this could have happened, but he's on his way to an urgent meeting and so could I email my phone no. to his assistant to deal with straight away. (Well, his assistant could just have looked up my personal details for himself). However, I've sent my phone no. to him anway and guess what? No response!

 

More comments HERE

Mike's "DI also means Digital Inclusion" will appear shortly