What is digital identity?
Digital identity explained
What is digital identity? That’s me online, right? One may think of our accounts on Instagram, Facebook or LinkedIn to name a few examples. You enter your username and password, in order to have access to your profile. But what if your account gets hacked, do they take your identity? Well, it depends on how you identified yourself when logging in. Digital identity is not just about who you are online, but how you prove who you are and indeed what you do when you move between different platforms and services.
The development of digital identity
Digital identity has been relevant since the beginning of digital social networks. To a certain extent, we have tried to facilitate the use of the digital identity. For example, you can use your Facebook profile to log in to other pages such as Aftonbladet. In this way, your facebook acts as an ID. It makes it easy because you don't have to memorize all the different passwords which enables you to log into new platforms with one click. The downside is that you expose your personal information, which social networks profit from with eg targeted ads. Everything you do online is saved and you leave traces behind you that are difficult to collect and control. This is called your digital footprint. Therefore, your digital identity not only consists of your Facebook profile, but everything you do online. Personal data is constantly collected about you with information about whose picture you like, which plane tickets you have bought and what type of content is of interest to you. With all this information, Google, globally in 2020, managed to 50% of all profit from digital marketing. In summary, your digital identity is based on your digital footprint. It includes both information that has been knowingly shared on social media as well as data collected unknowingly as you move online. That's not necessarily a bad thing because you get an enhanced and personalized experience. In many cases, convenience comes before long-term consequences. But imagine if you could have a personalized experience, with suggested ads and easier checkout at the checkout when you shop online, but without exposing your identity. Would you have chosen it then?
The future of digital identity
As information increasingly moves to the digital, it is important to be able to be sure that the right person has access to the right information. Or more importantly, that the wrong person cannot access your data. Security is important when it comes to e-ID. Verifiero also thinks that it should be a matter of course to be able to control which information is disclosed. That is, being able to control one's anonymity and privacy online, without removing security aspects. In fact, we are not anonymous today. BankID is constantly disclosed with detailed information about who you are. Verifero as a digital identification tool works so that the user first needs to approve what information is being released. In this way, you can, for example, identify yourself as a person over the age of 18, instead of your full name, year of birth and address. Made for users, by users, Verifiero allows you to legitimately verify your identity online without giving away details of your personal information.
