“Data Shadow” Identities
Posted on January 10, 2005
I found a couple of posts on Coralynn Sack’s Blog about your “data shadow” self — your identity as revealed by information available in corporation’s databases, or on the wild internet. I fear that the concepts involved here may be a little over my head, but it still is an interesting concept.
In the data shadow self, she writes:
The question becomes, is this data shadow model fundamentally different from our concept of personal identity? Personal identity is not equivalent to bodily identity. Anyone who assumes that identity consists of the physical self does not believe in life after death, reincarnation, the soul, etc. According to the memory theory of self, identity can be defined as a series of linked memories. Yet a comprehensive data shadow that records all of our activities would have these same memories.
And in Reconsidering Biometrics: Identity and the Case for Case:
Reading Neuromancer made me reconsider what I said about self identity in an earlier blog. Frankly, the data shadows that Garfinkel describes in Database Nation are a rather frightening prospect. While it might be possible for computer models to accurately predict our future actions, these prescriptive models would not be delving into the realm of identity theft. By claiming that detailed knowledge of the present can be used to “see” the future, this model challenges our beliefs in free will. This idea might be equally unsettling, but it does not truly alter our conception of identity.
I haven’t read Neuromancer myself, but now I think I will.
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