[governance] identity - an IG-related issue that crosses boundaries

[Garth Graham]

Ralf Bendrath wrote (his full posting is included at the end):
>> There is a great deal of work currently being done on
>> "Privacy and Identity Management" (PIM) infrastructures, but largely
>> without public participation...

... and yet political support of "user-centric identity" is likely to  
be of critical importance.  So how to make that "work" open to public  
participation is a very good question.  When (or maybe where?) will  
those whose identity is grounded in "internet Culture" start to speak  
more directly to the positive qualities of an Information Society  
that they know from experience to improve daily life?  And how will  
those whose identity is not grounded in Internet Culture hear what  
they say?  The necessary conversations are going to be about  
accepting where we are going, not defending where we have been.

The necessary public conversations are also going to be about values,  
more than they are about technologies.  The "protocol" in Internet  
Protocol can usefully be thought of as encoding a particular kind of  
social contract.  As the code that expresses the Internet's functions  
evolves, it is important that its design assumptions continue to take  
the implications of that contract into account.  The informing that  
occurs will only be "authentic" to the degree that the encoding of  
identity ensures the teller of my story is myself.

It seems to me that individual autonomy (self determination), rather  
than anonymity or privacy, is the key driving factor governing social  
relationship in an Information society.  Having lived and worked more  
in small towns (the "community level") than in urban areas, I am well  
aware that privacy is an illusion, and that gossip is really the  
primary vehicle of control in closed social networks.  I don't refer  
to small towns in the sense of a paradise lost.  It's just an  
explanation of the things that I see and the way that I see them.    
In the urbanized world we are all busy creating, the easiest primary  
vehicle of social control is likely be fear.  By defining the way in  
which relation occurs as "open," the Internet opposes rule by fear.   
It does this, in large part, by supporting the way in which networks  
re-define the determinants of identity.

I suspect that the expectation of privacy as a right is a holdover  
from the Industrial Age.  It served as a means of socialization to  
isolate or atomize individuals, thus rendered them more easily  
aggregated or mobilized as indistinguishable units of production.  We  
can be educated to accept the fairness of a social contract  that  
appropriates our public selves for the public good while, at the same  
time, leaving our private  selves to their own devises.

In an Information Society, the social structures are inherently  
relational (and the Internet Protocol mirrors that capacity to  
connect), and not involved in the separation of individuals as  
parts.   In order to sustain the self-organization of networks, the  
Internet enhances the autonomy of the individual to relate to other  
individuals without reference to authority or to structures that  
purport to legitimize or "represent" their choices.  The growth and  
evolution of Internet use continues because more people like the  
autonomy it gives them than do not.

If we began asking our national governments what they are doing to  
defend Internet Protocol from the attacks of telecommunications  
corporations,what would they say?   WSIS itself proves governments  
are now alert to, and threatened by, the changes in patterns of  
governance that are made real by relational networks based on peer-to- 
peer, end-to-end and edge-to-edge.  It seems likely to me that nation  
states will be slow to advocate strongly for what is after all a  
phase change in the nature of control that has radical consequences  
for current assumptions about the nature of governance.

It therefore seems to me that the forums appropriate for  
participation in dialogue about the implications and benefits of this  
change are neither international, nor national, nor even "multi- 
stakeholder" (in the sense of outsourcing the public good to "non- 
governmental" agencies).  If an Information society is a network of  
networks, and a nation within it is a network of networks, then the  
appropriate forums are going to be local.  It is becoming clear that  
the necessary defense of Internet Protocol is the responsibilty of  
local governments.   I have begun asking local governments what they  
are doing to defend Internet Protocol and, to my surprise, I am  
finding some that understand the question.

Public policy needs to focus much more than it does on the  
implications of living in a political economy of networks.  Rather  
than get hung up on dichotomies of urban versus rural, or centralized  
versus decentralized, public policy could then sustain communities of  
practice that are free to distribute functions through self- 
organization, and to scale according to the situations and settings  
they experience.  Left alone to be "governed" by their own choices,  
local networked economies can and will develop effectively.  And the  
non-zero sum of their efforts will cause a "nation as a network of  
networks" to emerge, transformed in a way that works better than it  
does now.

It's a question of who gets to tell my story.   I would trust that  
the structures of an Information society were fair if it was clear in  
right, and in law and in code that I was the owner of all of the  
forms for the digital expression of myself.   As the Internet  
evolves, the concept of identity online is also evolving and existing  
identity systems are faltering. Support is needed both for new  
systems of digital identity that center identity around the user and  
for open public participation in their design and application.

Yes, my best guess is that the most effective dialogues on the  
Internet Protocol's implications for identity will be local.  But I  
can't think of a way to avoid a "world" level discussion that  
wouldn't create more problems than it solves.  Therefore, and acting  
in sympathy with Milton Mueller's and Bertrand de La Chapelle's  
framework for proposing themes, I have also prepared a submission to  
the governance list under the subject heading, "Proposed theme: user  
centric digital identity."

Garth Graham
Telecommunities Canada



On 11-Mar-06, at 3:58 AM, Ralf Bendrath wrote:

> Garth Graham wrote:
>
>> Hardt is making a prediction that simple and open "user centric"
>> identity is inevitable.  If anything is close to the heart of IG  
>> in the
>> sense that I meant, it's the issue of how participation in an online
>> world changes our personal need to control the expression of  
>> identity.
>> If Hardt is right (and I hope he is), then beyond IG Forum/ Caucus
>> process issues, identity is an issue where civil society voices from
>> within the Information Society must play a strong advocacy role.
> Very good point, and one that we largely missed to discuss during  
> the WSIS
> phase (Bertrand made one brief attempt last year, but then  
> everybody was
> too busy).
>
> The issue of identity (and of online identity management) is strongly
> related to privacy, in the sense that the netizens (or citizens -
> whatever) have to be able to control what kind of information they  
> give to
> whom, and how that is used afterwards. It also is related to  
> pseudonymity
> and anonymity, and a strong fear among privacy advocates is that  
> all these
> infrastructures (the Internet, ambient intelligence systems, RFID
> passports, ...) will make is less easy of even impossible to do things
> anonymously. There is a great deal of work currently being done on
> "Privacy and Identity Management" (PIM) infrastructures, but largely
> without public participation...
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