KM-Master Course, 2004
Module: Communautés virtuelles,
Agents intelligents
C1: Identity & Identity issues
Thierry NABETH
INSEAD CALT – The Centre for Advanced Learning Technologies,
Fontainebleau, France
«MASTER MANAGEMENT ET INGENIERIE ECONOMIQUE»
Spécialité: Projet innovation conception, option gestion de la connaissance
Module: Communautés virtuelles, Agents intelligents
Thierry Nabeth, 2004
Defining The Identity Concept
• What is the Identity concept?
• Where is it used?
• Why it is important (what are the
issues)?
• How to manage Identity?
• Identity in virtual communities?
«MASTER MANAGEMENT ET INGENIERIE ECONOMIQUE»
Spécialité: Projet innovation conception, option gestion de la connaissance
Module: Communautés virtuelles, Agents intelligents
Thierry Nabeth, 2004
What is Identity
Identity has to do with the characteristics of the
individual, and what makes it unique or on the
contrary similar with the others.
Identity can be defined from an internal perpective,
or in the perspective of its interaction with the
environment.
«MASTER MANAGEMENT ET INGENIERIE ECONOMIQUE»
Spécialité: Projet innovation conception, option gestion de la connaissance
Module: Communautés virtuelles, Agents intelligents
Thierry Nabeth, 2004
Where is Identity used
Identity intervenes all the time in people life:
•When people travel
•In the personal life
•Family life
•Social life
•Health
•Work
•Business
•Shopping
•…
«MASTER MANAGEMENT ET INGENIERIE ECONOMIQUE»
Spécialité: Projet innovation conception, option gestion de la connaissance
Module: Communautés virtuelles, Agents intelligents
Thierry Nabeth, 2004
Health Care
Government
Work
Blood
Group
Tax
Status
Insurance
Name
Address
Birthplace
Foreign
Languages
Diary
Identity
of Alice
Partial
Identity
of Alice
Phone
Number
MasterCard
Age
Credit
Rating
Alice
Legend:
GoodConduct
Certificate
Health
Status
Income
Birthday
Shopping
Cellphone
Number
Interests
Payment
Diners Club
Driving
Licence
Likes &
Dislikes
Telecommunication
Travel
Boyfriend
Bob
Leisure
Identity of Alice, Marit Hansen, ICPP
«MASTER MANAGEMENT ET INGENIERIE ECONOMIQUE»
Spécialité: Projet innovation conception, option gestion de la connaissance
Module: Communautés virtuelles, Agents intelligents
Thierry Nabeth, 2004
Identity: a variety of perspectives
•Technical:
•The Digital Id, the Id tools
•Legal:
•Freedom (of expression), liability
•Security (police, etc.)
•Id Thief, controlling access, …
•Philosophy
•the Human being and the society
•Biology
•The Human as a living entity (DNA, …)
«MASTER MANAGEMENT ET INGENIERIE ECONOMIQUE»
Spécialité: Projet innovation conception, option gestion de la connaissance
Module: Communautés virtuelles, Agents intelligents
Thierry Nabeth, 2004
Identity: a variety of perspectives (cont.)
•Psychology
•Who I am? (behaviours, personal life)
•Sociology
•Who are they? (groups & relationships)
•Organisation, business
•Position, affiliation, reputation
•Marketing
•The abstract identity (profiling, datamining)
•Commerce
•The customer (transaction)
«MASTER MANAGEMENT ET INGENIERIE ECONOMIQUE»
Spécialité: Projet innovation conception, option gestion de la connaissance
Module: Communautés virtuelles, Agents intelligents
Thierry Nabeth, 2004
Some Concept
• Partial identity
• Self identity
• True, assign and abstracted identity
«MASTER MANAGEMENT ET INGENIERIE ECONOMIQUE»
Spécialité: Projet innovation conception, option gestion de la connaissance
Module: Communautés virtuelles, Agents intelligents
Thierry Nabeth, 2004
Partial Identities used in Contexts
Contextualisation
Identity facets
Partial Identities
Territories / Spheres
Several partial identities (activated in context)
Need to isolate these partial identities
«MASTER MANAGEMENT ET INGENIERIE ECONOMIQUE»
Spécialité: Projet innovation conception, option gestion de la connaissance
Module: Communautés virtuelles, Agents intelligents
Thierry Nabeth, 2004
The self identity concept
•The I
•The indeterminate first person perspective
•The implicit Me
•The potentially representable identity
•The explicit Me
•The identity managed by digital
infrastructures
«MASTER MANAGEMENT ET INGENIERIE ECONOMIQUE»
Spécialité: Projet innovation conception, option gestion de la connaissance
Module: Communautés virtuelles, Agents intelligents
Thierry Nabeth, 2004
The self identity concept. Issues
•Acknowledging and addressing the
Imperfection of representation
•Right to correct
•The question of Control
•By the individual
•By trusted third parties
•By external parties (companies exploiting this
information)
«MASTER MANAGEMENT ET INGENIERIE ECONOMIQUE»
Spécialité: Projet innovation conception, option gestion de la connaissance
Module: Communautés virtuelles, Agents intelligents
Thierry Nabeth, 2004
True, Assign and abstracted Identity
•The personal Identity (inner and timeless)
•Exists all the time.
•The corporate Identity
•Attached to a particular context only
•The abstracted identity
•No attached to an individual (profiling)
«MASTER MANAGEMENT ET INGENIERIE ECONOMIQUE»
Spécialité: Projet innovation conception, option gestion de la connaissance
Module: Communautés virtuelles, Agents intelligents
Thierry Nabeth, 2004
True, Assign and abstracted Identity, Issues
•Temporality
•To be strongly protected
•Conditionality
•To be detachable from the Individual
•The abstracted identity
•Abstract, but real consequences for people.
(to set some boundaries of what can be done).
«MASTER MANAGEMENT ET INGENIERIE ECONOMIQUE»
Spécialité: Projet innovation conception, option gestion de la connaissance
Module: Communautés virtuelles, Agents intelligents
Thierry Nabeth, 2004
Managing identity
• The technical approach:
– Let’s create some tools
• The legal approach:
– Let’s legislate (forbid or allow)
• Security
– Let’s control (procedures)
• Pedagogy
– Lets educate (how to behave)
«MASTER MANAGEMENT ET INGENIERIE ECONOMIQUE»
Spécialité: Projet innovation conception, option gestion de la connaissance
Module: Communautés virtuelles, Agents intelligents
Thierry Nabeth, 2004
Identity in the Internet Age
• Identity in new pure digital territories:
– Virtual community systems, MMORPG,
electronic market place, collaborative elearning platforms, blogs, wikis, …
• Digitalisation of real territories
– Enhanced reality (mixing real/digital),
ubiquitous communication, RFID,
“Cyborgnetic”, blended learning
• Crime & frauds
– Spying, phishing, money laundering, etc.
«MASTER MANAGEMENT ET INGENIERIE ECONOMIQUE»
Spécialité: Projet innovation conception, option gestion de la connaissance
Module: Communautés virtuelles, Agents intelligents
Thierry Nabeth, 2004
the eIdentity, What’s new?
• Many Identity concepts & issues existed before
the advent of the Information Society (ISoc)
– Id fraud, democracy, etc.
• But the ISoc has magnified their importance:
– Possibility to record everything (technically and
economically)
– Possibility to analyse this information (profiling)
– Possibility to do massive personalisation
• New usages
– Profiling / Personalisation, support for social networks,
geographically informed systems, …
– Extreme mobility
«MASTER MANAGEMENT ET INGENIERIE ECONOMIQUE»
Spécialité: Projet innovation conception, option gestion de la connaissance
Module: Communautés virtuelles, Agents intelligents
Thierry Nabeth, 2004
Identity & Virtual communities
• Variety of ways to define one’s identity:
– Web page, Blogs, reputation systems (ebay),
socialware, dating systems, …
• Variety of ways this identity is misused
– What about spamming, spying, privacy issues
etc.?
• Managing this identity
– Identification (anonymity, pseudonyme, etc.)
– Observability, encryption, etc.
«MASTER MANAGEMENT ET INGENIERIE ECONOMIQUE»
Spécialité: Projet innovation conception, option gestion de la connaissance
Module: Communautés virtuelles, Agents intelligents
Thierry Nabeth, 2004
Identity in Domains
• healthcare:
– the management of medical information. This
information should not be disclosed outside the medical
or the private sphere.
• personal life:
– hobbits, family composition, sexual orientation, ...
• work::
– job title and position, competence, professional
experience, etc.
• education::
–
diploma (in which institution), interest, grades, etc...
«MASTER MANAGEMENT ET INGENIERIE ECONOMIQUE»
Spécialité: Projet innovation conception, option gestion de la connaissance
Module: Communautés virtuelles, Agents intelligents
Thierry Nabeth, 2004