Can Avatars Stop Identity Theft? Salon.com (08/05/08) Caruso, Denise
as it appeared in the August 15, 2008 edition of ACM TechNews.
Digital avatars like those that inhabit massively multiplayer online role-playing games such as Second Life may be crucial to restoring people's control over their digital identities. Businesses currently call the shots and basically force consumers to disclose whatever personal information they want so that they can purchase products and services, while a core element of such virtual worlds is the ability to conduct credible and anonymous transactions through avatars. Blogger Denise Caruso says virtual worlds are an excellent testbed for the possibilities of user-centric identity systems. "Even at their relatively crude stage today, the technology on which they are based already allows them to interact and transact anonymously--with varying degrees of intimacy and in relative security--with millions of other avatars, including those who are hellbent on causing them some kind of digital harm," she notes. Identity Woman blog operator Kaliya Hamlin predicted at the 2007 Digital ID World conference that avatars will eventually demand or be granted other digital rights, including the legal right to exist in the virtual rather than the physical domain. Identity professionals are investigating how to construct a less intrusive network that lets people drive their own identities around the Internet with a greater degree of safety. "Avatar technology has a long way to go before it can be truly useful as an identity system, but based on the trajectory of technology adoption--from enthusiast to professional to mass adoption--it is probably on the right course," Caruso concludes. Click Here to View Full Article
