Over at the Digital Identity Forum, they have announced this year's conference. London, 21-22 November. I have been to several of the series run by Consult-Hyperion, and can attest that they are worthwhile. Dave and companions do try very hard to cover a broad swathe of the difficult territory known as "Identity," without getting caught in the academic definitions trap that other conferences perpetually fall into.
Well recommended! And, by way of disclosure, I might be there myself, courtesy of a prize ticket.
To continue identifying with today's theme, over in Second Life, they have added an identity verification service. One blog thinks that this is a great move:
The possibilities are huge. Off the top of my head, I see contracts executed in-world, legal representation that starts in-world, and virtual world employment that goes beyond warming a camp chair. And that’s just the beginning.The important details are:
- Verification is voluntary.
- You can verify your age, location, gender, and/or name.
- You can do it piecemeal (e.g. just age, for access to restricted content).
- If you don’t verify age, you can’t access restricted parcels.
- It will be free at first, but there will be fees imposed later.
This other blog sounds warnings of skepticism:
The new system is called "Identity Verification (IDV)", a shift away from the old use of the term "age verification". The shift is significant, as the focus now is in finding out who its users are, rather than whether or not it's ok to let them in. None of this information will be stored by Linden Lab, but no such assurances have been given about what the service provider will do with your personal details once they have them.The service provider is Integrity, a subsidiary of Aristotle, a data-mining agency in the business of helping people run political campaigns. Users will have to trust that they won't ever use their personal details for anything that disagrees with their personal politics.
And other comments of how much of a failure the chosen service provider is.
I'll defer commenting on that one today. Frequent visitors to the world of FC can probably guess!
Posted by iang at August 31, 2007 06:45 AM | TrackBack