Phweet Thoughts on Laws of Identity

Kim Cameron writes today that he has been working on how to make the Laws of Identity accessible to busy people without a technical background. The short laws he outlines below are exactly the reason Phweet was created.

I would add one element to these simplified laws.

Escalation to the highest levels of communication should be a friction free opportunity if so agreed by both parties.

My best example is Phweet. You can escalate from Twitter to a call or conference without the need to know the other persons number or anything other than what they have already shared. That is a friction free escalation. I will only point out here that the biggest barrier to achieving this is the telephone number. Telecom has traditionally provided the credentials for calling. It is a number and sometimes your address book (can even identify it). This is now outdated. We have many different profiles that we are already sharing with each other. The problem is we cannot aggregate it or share it under different conditions.

Today how we share facets of ourselves should enable us to quickly get into all sorts of new conversations. It’s time to construct a future where we can share what we want as our CallerID and more. There is no clearer illustration of why this is needed than a Twinkle client with location. How can anyone locally call me? Phweet is the answer! Proximity connections that can rapidly escalate.

IdentityBlog - Digital Identity, Privacy, and the Internet’s Missing Identity Layer

People using computers should be in control of giving out information about themselves, just as they are in the physical world.

Only information needed for the purpose at hand should be released, and only to those who need it, just as we don’t indiscriminately broadcast our private information in daily life.

It should NOT be possible to automatically link up everything we do in all aspects of how we use the Internet. A single identifier that stitches everything up would be a big mistake.

We need choice in terms of who provides our identity information in different contexts.

The system must be built so that as users, we can understand how it works, make rational decisions and protect ourselves.

And finally, for all these reasons, we need a single, consistent, comprehensible user experience even though behind the scenes, different technologies, identifiers and identity providers are being used.

I also take issue with the working in the second to last statement. It implies that someone should build a system. We don’t need a system. We already have systems. Eg I have Facebook or Linkedin. I believe users will build a system when they are ready. They will be ready when they can easily share what they already have and when it helps them further with new exchanges and thus conversations.

“need choice in terms of who provides our identity information”.

Phweet was built to enable these types of exchanges. Billions of them, decentralized P2P effectively. No central system brokering identity. I personally hope you will help me. Together all of us can help shape a better future.