Global identity policies and technology: do we understand the question?
Open accessAbstract
Why do we get technology policy so wrong, so often? As governments rush to develop new identity policies they fail too often in answering essential questions: are identity policies capable of addressing a diverse range of policy goals? Are the techniques we imagine to be necessary in fact helpful? Instead, policy makers remain fixated on expensive and sexy ‘biometrics’ and vast new centralised databases to solve problems they do not understand. This survey seeks to resolve why policy makers repeatedly commission identity schemes based on obsolete knowledge of modern technological capabilities. We argue that policy making requires an understanding of technological issues as well as more traditional political and organisational concerns, and a little less bravado. As a result, policy makers can set about developing effective solutions that are citizen friendly and actually address pressing policy goals.
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Centralized identity systems are generally expensive and bureaucratic, likely politically impractical for migrants, and subject to high privacy, data abuse, and cybersecurity risks.
“Such a system is generally expensive and bureaucratic, likely politically impractical for the use case of migrants (especially for vulnerable populations on the move), and subject to high privacy, data abuse, and cybersecurity risks (Whitley and Hosein, 2010).”
From Self-Sovereign Identity in a Globalized World: Credentials-Based Identity Systems as a Driver for Economic Inclusion (2020) · cites this paper as Whitley and Hosein, 2010
The challenge of implementation (page unavailable) describes centralized databases as targets for hackers and at risk of catastrophic breaches, exclusion through errors, and abuse through fraudulent registration. The paper also describes coordination burdens and calls some identity policies a potential financial and political liability. It does not establish that centralized systems are generally expensive and bureaucratic or that they are politically impractical specifically for migrants and vulnerable people on the move. (LLM, conf=0.85)
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Cites
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Flagged first, then by citations
Research works printed but not linked: 1
- Smith, A. and Clarke, R. (2000) 'Identification, Authentication and Anonymity in a Legal Context', Computer Law and Security Report, 16 (2), pp. 95-100.
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Sorted by citations
Wang, F., & De Filippi, P. (2020) · Frontiers in Blockchain · doi:10.3389/fbloc.2019.00028 · Cited by 143 · see citing works
“use case of migrants (especially for vulnerable populations on the move), and subject to high privacy, data abuse, and cybersecurity risks (Whitley and Hosein, 2010).”
Background
- Authors
- Whitley, E. A., & Hosein, G.
- Affiliations
- London School of Economics and Political Science (GB)
- ORCID
- Whitley, Edgar A.
- Venue
- Global Policy
- Publisher
- Wiley
- Published
- 2010-05
- Volume
- 1
- Issue
- 2
- Pages
- 209-215
- ISSN
- 1758-5880 (ISSN-L)
- 1758-5899
- OpenAlex
- W2136004761
- Cited by
- 34
- References
- 19
- Citations by year
- 2025: 1 · 2023: 11 · 2022: 1 · 2020: 5 · 2019: 1 · 2018: 3 · 2017: 1 · 2016: 1 · 2015: 2 · 2013: 3 · 2012: 4
- FWCI
- 16.64
- Type
- journal article
- Language
- en
- Open access
- hybrid
- doi.org
- Licence
- Locations
- Global Policy (publishedVersion, other-oa)
- Topics
- Social Sciences › Political Science and International Relations › E-Government and Public Services
- Social Sciences › Political Science and International Relations › Security, Politics, and Digital Transformation
- Social Sciences › Sociology and Political Science › Privacy, Security, and Data Protection
- Keywords
- identity policy, technology policy, biometrics, policy making, technological capabilities
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