RatcliffeBlog - Mitch Thinking Out Loud

Bryan is misunderstood, not unclued

Bryan is misunderstood, not unclued

Bryan Field-Elliot of PingID replied to my comments on the Digital ID debate. He says I tore him a new one, but really, I think I'm reacting to the lack of focus on the individual's ownership of their identity by the Cluetrain boys, Doc and David. Based on his comments, I think folks have been focusing on a tangential technical issue he raised, about the implicit cryptographic qualities of Digital ID to the detriment of his larger argument, which is that people should own their identities.

You do have to have a technology to engage in a policy debate. However, the policy debate must also shape the technology. A user-centric ID system is critical, and it needs a constitution and a representative system to provide guidance for the policies that govern the use of the IDs generally – we cannot expect everyone to effectively govern the minutiae of their privacy day-in-day-out, so a general set of guidelines and an ongoing discussion is crucial to an evolving Digital ID policy.