More digging that ID
Eric Norlin continues on the notion of T2 vs. T3 identity:
I think there's a misunderstanding around a T2 identity here. A T2 identity is (for instance) the title that you have a job. So let's say you're:
Doc Searls
Senior Editor, Linux Journal
and along with that title (and the accompanying benefits of it), you were issued a corporate credit card. These identities were issued to you and are temporary and conditional -- ie, if you get fired, you no longer have those identities.
Compare that with a T1 -- that's your own individual identity....and therein I think Mitch is absolutely right -- we own it. period.
Here’s where Eric and I differ fundamentally: I think the job title borrows from you, rather than you from the job title. Individual rights always outweigh corporate rights, despite the fact that companies are fictional people for legal purposes.
If I take a job (which I am never inclined to do), I’m loaning my reputation to the company, not borrowing value from the company. Sure, it may be that it is a situation where it is my first job, so I’d not be giving the company much rep, but I’m not getting much of a title, either.
Also, the mechanism of identity Eric refers to, like a corporate credit card, is not a form of identity at all, it is a transactional mechanism. Identity is separate from the mechanisms of commerce. It precedes that commercial role Eric chooses to focus on.
Likewise, if I fly an airline and they have offered me a spiff in the form of miles, they are mine and I may use or dispose of them as I choose without incurring any debt to the company in the form of their use of my identity as a “happy customer,” unless I give explicit consent to be counted as such (and that can be governed by a simple set of principles that can be modified over time using a representative democratic system to decide about policies, so that day-to-day management of my identity is unnecessary).
Also, for Eric's (albeit Digital ID-centric) view of what will happen in 2003, check out his column in Digital ID World.
Posted by Mitch Ratcliffe at December 30, 2002 05:15 PM | TrackBack