My Identity Wallet
by Peter
These days everyone is talking about my “Online Identity” and lots of big companies are trying to be the first to deliver their vision of an Identity Wallet.
So I thought about what I would want in such a wallet. My starting point is my current real life “Identity Wallet”. I’ve included a picture of it above. It’s pretty cool – it fits in my pocket, has a “transparent” protector on one side so that I can show people my drivers license, and then it has “convenient” holders for credit cards and business cards. Best of all it comes in a color of my Choice.
Notice how I used three key words:
- Transparent
- Convenient
- Choice
These attributes are really important to me. I want a simple convenient, adaptable solution that I can customize based on what I want to carry with me on any given day.
And that is what is going to be required of any Online Identity solution. It must be simple, convenient, easy to use and Privacy enhancing. It should work seamlessly with the other item I carry in my pocket, (my smartphone) and I should be able to add anything I want to it. Then when I interact with Web sites online I should easily be able to send that data to them (securely).
Anything less than the above is not innovation and I doubt will lead to adoption. By the way the electronic equivalent of my regular wallet is a customizable secure database. It just needs to be integrated into the browser for easy online use.
Simple and it “Just Works”.