Sg2009wc:transparency

Title: Transparency & Identity Online & In Real Life

Session: 3-G Bay Area Jan 2009

Convener: Ida Rose & Susan Mernit

Attendees:

Notes:

What does it Mean?

Using different personalities/personas on line- discussion around 'handles' and branding- separating from real name

Prefessional - (word combination of personal/professional) - combined worlds of professional and personal online identity-
- who wants to know who you are when they find you? discussed that it could be your customer,your employer, coworkers, your friends/family, strangers
- long term concerns---what you say now can affect you later- how do you think about those events? e.g. sharing medical stories that might affect the way a future employee thinks of you.
- the "ugly side" of putting identity access stuff out there e.g. "spam" created by adding yourself to services, etc.

Having your identity being out there-->>>someone talked about how since the 70s they have been using the same 'handle'- hundreds of username/password= having to change and create a new identity would lose a lot and is not manageable
- discussion around what happens when you are forced to change your identity - someone shared a story about how they went about trying to erase things associated with their real name . from contacting google to remove things (they have a form you can submit requests) from their indexes to contacting web content owners. but the bottom line? things that are out there will never never disappear!!

Biometrics- the idea of your digtial identity life pulse
various people talked about their experiences when they got stalked , or harassed- sometimes to the point that they had to completely remove their online identity and start again

Discussion on how you create a synonymous identities- not using your legal name for everything you do online as well as offline
discussed how to do that offline, eg, conferences where you might not want to be identified by your real name- but you need to pay by credit cards etc. using paypal,

Advice to everyone- buy your name as a domain name if you haven't already!
remember when you buy something whois directory will display your personal info- how transparent will you be?
Someone mentioned a new service called Nombray that allows you to buy your name as a domain and automatically creating an online identity http://www.nombray.com/
Discussed grabbing your name when any new service is create. pros- someone else doesn't get your username/ cons- too many services to remember
Discussion around the importance of picking secure passwords as you create multiple identities

Make sure you put a disclaimer about what you write on your blog so it is clear to you employer, readers and anyone that might come across it- but other services (twitter,facebook etc) don't make that as easy.

We are human so sometimes we talk trash-but today we need to be extra careful- are you saying and doing anything that you can't take the hit for online OR offline?

Think of it in a simple way- what if everything you ever wrote ended up on the front page of the New York Times- you need to make that a standard- don't make public what you would not want appearing there.

A certain amount of transparency is good because people are becoming more and more transparent both on and offline today it is easier/safer/better established boundaries- but think long term

discussion around kids creating indenties online-
- how do you help your kids brand themselves online? the identity they are creating now may be with them for the rest of their lives
- teenagers are not aware of the fact that all the do online will be online basically forever and they can't hide from it.
- parents who are familiar with these issues should make an effort to educate the other parents in the neighborhood because typically not every parent is connected