Defining Digital Identity

Digital Identity, in its simplest form, is a digital means of establishing we are who we say we are. There are at least three types of digital identity in use today:

Identity issued by an identity provider: There are both public sector and private sector identity providers.

In the public sector, a state typically issues identification and uses it to recognize each person uniquely, to provide rights or entitlements.

Private sector identity providers — such as banks, tech companies, etc. — can also offer digital identity for access to commercial services.

In some cases, there may be crossover between the public and private sector identities.

… locate locate locate

or what we watch, or data from other smart devices we use. Increasingly, such information can be used to identify us — or something about us — reasonably accurately, either through our own self-assertions or through the assessments of third-party algorithms.

Self-asserted and self-sovereign identity: In contrast to the means of identity provided by an external party, there are also identities or personas that we create for ourselves in the digital world where we choose how to portray ourselves and the claims we make. This category also includes identities or personas that use pseudonyms or other approaches to obscure all or part of our formal “legal” identity, thereby presenting ourselves as we want to be seen rather than embracing an identity provider’s definition. These identities are heavily oriented toward the preferences of a particular individual, but may offer claims that clash with those of established identity providers.

Also - relevant

What We Talk About

• accountability
• identity
• openness
• security
• transparency
• trust
• web 3.0

Let’s End Ageism

Ashton Applewhite

Ashton Applewhite - Let’s End Ageism - A Ted Talk

Released

August 23, 2017

Lot’s more to say on this, and will. Some of the points I touched on in Tuesday’s Newsletter.

Ditch The Binary

“Look at gender. We used to think of it as a binary, male or female, and now we understand it’s a spectrum. It is high time to ditch the old-young binary, too.”

Ashton Applewhite

Says it all really. Ageism is alive and well. In fact the same day, Paul Krugman wrote a piece on the job market that I totally disagreed with - so of course I had to write something.

You can read the whole of Issue Number 7 here.

Krugman Should Comment On The Complete Picture

krugman

Paul Krugman writing in the NYT today.

There was a message in the latest jobs report that is consistent with what these reports have been telling us for at least the past year or two. Namely, the workers are alright.

Paul Krugman

Well who am I to disagree with Paul Krugman?

John Philpin - that’s who. And I completely disagree.

As always, its what’s not being said that matters. The elephant [efn_note]elephants?[/efn_note] in the room cannot be ignored, and I am disappointed that someone like Krugman should waste his time on this kind of ‘opinion’. Yes, we have ‘great’ employment figures. But that’s because as usual, we measure and comment on the wrong things. ‘Everybody’ having a job is not the point (if a large chunk of the workforce is excluded from the count of ‘everybody’). It is everybody (not just 25 to 54-year-olds) having one job, that is paid fairly, so doesn’t need to work a second job to make ends meet. That is what we should be looking at.

Consider The Whole Workforce

The data was reporting on “the prime-age employment ratio, the percentage of Americans in their prime working years, ages 25 to 54, who have jobs.”

54 is just at the point where ageism creeps in … see this week’s newsletter

It’s just at that point that the problems kick in.

“This isn’t how most people think they’re going to finish out their work lives,” said Richard Johnson, an Urban Institute economist and veteran scholar of the older labor force who worked on the analysis. “For the majority of older Americans, working after 50 is considerably riskier and more turbulent than we previously thought.”

Richard Johnson, Economist [ProPublica]

Full Time Or Part Time

From the same ProPublica report, the graph speaks for itself.

Strong argument to suggest BTW that some 18% that are not in the labour force have partially self-selected out. Do we really believe that 8.39% of all American workers eligible to work have actually retired? Or is that what they use to describe their position because they can’t get another job.

Multiple Jobs

Twenty percent of teachers in America have a second job.

And they aren’t the only ones!

People rarely work second jobs for fun, they work them to survive.

Reward For Your Work

Pew Research reporting just last year that real wages have not moved in decades.

So yes, ‘fully employed’ America, where you aren’t counted in the last ten years of your working life, and those that are counted are working double jobs to make ends meet, while others are self-declaring early retirement because they can’t get a job. Life is just dandy … no?

Ditch The Binary

This chap thinks that Ditch The Binary might be a good read - though this chap did write it. If you like it - you might want to subscribe to future issues

Wrong. Very Wrong.

Data Is The New PLasma

Startups are now offering people “passive income” for their personal data. These companies claim to empower consumers to profit from personal data. But actually, they entrench an attention economy where cash-strapped consumers trade personal privacy for quick cash — much like the plasma-for-cash biz. Data exchanges broker the sale of personal data between the people who generate it and the large companies hungry for it. One, Streamr, connects real-time personal data with companies via subscription. Another, UBDI (Universal Basic Data Income), buys personal data and sells “insights” to companies. At first glance, it’s tempting … If my toaster and my watch are already collecting data, I might as well get paid for it, right?

The Hustle

My Take

Wrong. And they know it. Read more here. No most discussion needed, but if you want to - I’m ready.

What is Data anyway?

Human Agency

hegel2.PNG

“No one ever conceived of a more sophisticated and dynamic philosophical history than Hegel. His system is built around three fundamental ideas.”

Sam Haselby

In summary …

First, the key to human agency is self-consciousness. For people to be doing anything in any real human sense is to know what we are doing as we do it.

Secondly, self-consciousness is always a matter of locating ourselves in a kind of social space of ‘I’ and ‘we’.

Third, there are ways in which things can go better or worse and we can make it possible to become new, different and better versions of ourselves. But what we can make of ourselves depends on where we are in history.

… but what we can make of ourselves depends on where we are in history.

Hegel’s search for the universal patterns of history revealed a paradox: freedom is coming into being, but is never guaranteed

Read the whole thing at Aeon : What is history? Nobody gave a deeper answer than Hegel

Cleaning House

More of a record to self than something to overly concern you, but nonetheless potentially useful. As People First continues to further establish itself, we are ‘upping the ante’ on our online presence.

First, we are moving the site away from the blog centric feel it has had for a while now to more of a functional site. Most content not in place, yet, but there are plenty of pointers and ‘eye candy’ in the galleries.

There has been a Google Groups in place for years, but it fell into disuse, so it is being killed and replaced with a new group on Groups.io Emails have gone out to the old membership to test the appetite before I spend too much time building it all up. I can say that I have good experience of it, since a ‘sister’ organization - Me2B - is using Groups.io very effectively.

We have agreed to our first Sponsorship, more details about it in the not too distant future.

Tomorrow being Tuesday, will see our seventh newsletter hitting the streets (if you’ll pardon the mixed metaphor), really wanting to grow that readership.

The Instagram and Twitter accounts are in full flow and a presence on a few third-party publishers is beginning to happen, with plans for more. Any of the links below will allow you to engage with People First in your way and on your terms.

🎵 New track by a friend of a friend. Very relaxing.