1.
How is society accepting
digital identity?
Gemma San Cornelio, PhD
Information and Communication Sciences Studies
Universitat Oberta de Catalunya 26/02/2019
MWC19 Seminar – The Future of Digital Identity: From Revolutionary
Technologies to Social Acceptance

2.
1. Digital Identity in a timeline
2. Topics and trends in digital
culture and society
3. Social and media perceptions
on digital identity
4. Speculative futures of digital
identity

3.
Digital Identity in a
timeline

4.
1993

5.
1995

6.
2001-2003
2003 -

7.
2006

8.
2008 -

9.
2013 -

10.
Qualified self (Humphreys, 2018)
2013

11.
Topics and trends in digital
culture and society

12.
Society
Technologies
Academic
research Funders. /
Stakeholders
Institutions /
Regulations

13.
Topics at Digital Culture and Internet Conferences
Participation, blogs, engaging audiences, cultural disruptions and creativity,
new ways of cultural production, new media literacies (are a constant) and the
use of new media in educational contexts, social media, selfies, gender and
identity issues...
2014 - BIG DATA,
2016 - DATAFICATION
2018 - Media datafication, the new paradigm (deep mediatization through
data, Hepp and Couldry, 2018)

14.
Projects that show concern on DATA, as a source of
inequalities
● ART/DATA/HEALTH
● ARTACTIVE. Data activism
● Home life data/child data in AI
● Biases on algorithms
● Visualization literacies

15.
Social and media
perceptions on
digital identity

16.
Data = personal data = identity
● Stealing or using data without consent or
inappropriately (Cambridge Analytica
case)
● Fake News in political issues all around
the World
● Deep-fakes (audiovisual)
From a more general perspective...
https://movieweb.com/steve-buscemi-jennifer-
lawrence-deepfake-video/

17.
“Your digital identity
has three layers, and
you can only protect
one of them”
https://qz.com/1525661/y
our-digital-identity-has-
three-layers-and-you-can-
only-protect-one-of-them/
Three layers of identity
Katarzyna Szymielewicz, January 25, 2019

18.
Pew Research Internet
http://www.pewresearch.org/fact-
tank/2019/02/13/7-things-weve-
learned-about-computer-
algorithms/
Algorithms and Personal Data

19.
“They all try to say that it’s anonymous to lower the pressure from the
public, but that’s not true. They know that and we know that.”
https://aircloak.com/privacy-and-data-driven-business-models/
Telefonica report:
https://www.elevenpaths.com/wp-
content/uploads/2015/10/Telefonica_LVTI2N.pdf
Security, anonymity and privacy

20.
Speculative futures for digital
identity

21.
● We are able to predict the end of the world
but unable to foresee the future of internet
from 10 years from now.
● We need to build scenarios of future
beyond dystopic or pessimistic scenarios
provided by media, TV shows etc.
● Speculative design
● Visions for the Future Internet - call for
pitches NESTA
YES, WE ARE IN A PESSIMISTIC PHASE
https://www.nesta.org.uk/project/next-generation-internet-
engineroom/visions-future-internet-call-pitches/

22.
Smartphone Ownership Is Growing Rapidly
Around the World, but Not Always Equally
In emerging economies, technology use still
much more common among young people and
the well-educated
http://www.pewglobal.org/2019/02/05/smartphon
e-ownership-is-growing-rapidly-around-the-
world-but-not-always-equally/
Reduce complexity in the process of
authenticating and authorizing identity
management. More transparency.
Mature societies. But should be treated
segmentedly. Middle-aged people need literacy
Opportunities:

23.
Literacies for sense-making of our personal data (Lupton, 2018) It refers
to the ways in which people engage with and learn from information
(Frank et al., 2016; Wolff et al., 2016). This perspective draws mainly on
literatures in informatics, education and information literacy research,
using the analogy of literacy as the ability to read: that is, understand and
use text, with data.
Education may empower users and provide control over data, making
more them confident, and consequently, accepting and controlling digital
identity.
Data literacies

24.
UOCresearch
@UOC_research
Thank you!
@gsancornelio
gsan_cornelio@uoc.edu