What is Privacy and Digital Identity?

1. What is Digital Identity?

The totality of the information that is present about you online is referred to as your digital identity. Your username and password are not all, it is a web of information:

• Self-Reported Data - Data that you provide voluntarily such as your name, date of birth, and posts on your social media.
• Behavioral Data - What you search, how much time you spend in certain applications and even your movements of the mouse.
• Derived Data - The information companies make assumptions about you based on your habits like political orientation, health condition or financial standing.

2. The Privacy Paradox

We are confronted regularly with the Privacy Paradox - we claim to place much importance on our privacy, but we sell it quite oftentimes to convenience. We do not even bother to read the terms and conditions before we accept Cookies so we can have a quicker site to get to, or we give our real-time location to get a 10% off code.

Nonetheless, privacy in the digital age is not only about possessing secrets. It concerns consent and control. The right to determine who has access to your information, when, and why is the right one. When the companies monitor you on several websites without your awareness, the control is lost.

3. The Change towards Privacy by Design

Privacy has been a side thought in software designing. Today, with the assistance of legislations such as the GDPR and CCPA, we are heading in the direction of Privacy by Design. It involves the creation of security as a fundamental part of our frameworks:

• Data Minimization - It involves collecting the data provided it is essential to have the app to work. When a flashlight application demands your address book that is a colossal red flag.
• Encryption - Making sure that a data cannot be read by anyone who does not have the key - be it a server (at rest) or a data packet sent via the internet (in transit).
• Anonymization - Removing identifiers of individuals so that a piece of data can be applied to research or analytics without identifying individuals who utilize it.

4. The Future - Self-Sovereign Identity (SSI)

The identity model that is currently in use is the Siloed model. You do not have a single identity with Google, Facebook, and your bank. They possess your information and when they are hacked, then your identity is lost.

Self-Sovereign Identity (SSI) is the future. SIA will enable you to carry your identity in a digital wallet using blockchain and decentralized technology. When a web site requires you to confirm what age you are, you do not provide your birth date and ID, you provide a cryptographic evidence of being above 18. They receive the validation required and you retain your data.

Recommendation: Keeping the Digital Self safe. Innovation does not have a problem with privacy; it is a condition to trust. When creating the next generation of technology, it is necessary to keep in mind that a human being stands behind every data point. Securing a digital identity, literally, is securing an individual.