SID: An Exploration of Super-Identity

The capacity to identify one another is paramount. It underpins social dialogue, commercial transactions, individual entitlements to goods and services and issues of legal and criminal responsibility. In today's society, each of these activities can take place both within the real world and the cyber world making the concept of identity, and the process of identification, more challenging than ever before. The SID project addresses this challenge through an ambitious and innovative programme of work, bringing together experts from a diverse spectrum of scientific domains ranging from automated biometrics, cyber-psychology, forensic anthropology, human-computer interaction, mathematical modelling, and complex data visualisation. In addition, the project is backed by key industrial and governmental stakeholders, represented through an Advisory Group and providing direct input throughout the project.

The first stage of the project is to define the set of identity measures of interest and to gather relevant datasets either from existing resources, or through active data collection from participants across diverse demographic populations. Our measures of interest will fall into four categories: static and behavioural measures in the real world; and static and behavioural measures in the cyber world. These measures will be the basis for our model of Super-Identity, and their selection will be informed by the input of analysts, and end-users within intelligence, e-commerce and forensic sectors. At this early stage, and throughout the life of the project, we explicitly examine the social, legal and ethical considerations associated with data privacy and data protection. Work Package 1 addresses these issues.

Once this framework is in place, extensive testing will be conducted to determine the accuracy and reliability of automated and human identification from each measure. This will determine (i) the confidence that should be attributed to each measure, (ii) the effect that changing contexts may have on that measure and (iii) the potential relationship between measures. The results of this phase of work will continually update our Super-Identity model enabling measures to be combined, cross-referenced, and weighted according to their individual confidence estimates. Work Package 2 addresses these issues.

Consideration of how to present the information to the end user is the crucial next stage. With the benefit of expertise in human computer interaction and data visualisation, and the participatory engagement from end-users, the model will be refined with specific attention to its visual presentation in a flexible yet intuitive format. Work Package 3 addresses these issues.

In combination, SID provides fusion of known measures, revelation of unknown measures, and quantification of certainty associated with each measure, and thus the identification decision overall. In this way, it provides a step-change in the way that we think about identity and identification, and in the value that it might hold for the real world.

Reliable methods of identification are fundamental to all members of a modern society. Without these, our capacity to tell one person from another is compromised, with consequences for personal privacy, information safety, and criminal accountability. Inappropriate access to online bank accounts, sensitive data, or secure facilities can follow, jeopardising public safety and National Security. Similarly, in a criminal context, identification of the wrong suspect can contribute to the criminal trial, conviction, and sentencing of an innocent party, together with a failure to pursue the true perpetrator.

The work outlined here will address these concerns through exploration of the concept of a Super-Identity (SID). We pay particular attention to the robustness and predictive power that can result from a combination of identity cues, and to the capacity to quantify identification certainty given the certainty associated with individual inputs. Impact comes from the breadth of cues that SID will consider, including cues from real world and cyber domains. Novelty comes also from the capacity to use natural correlations of cues in a predictive capacity such that knowing about one aspect of identity can lead to the prediction of other aspects. With this in mind, we anticipate that there will be four major groups of beneficiaries for this research.

First, those involved in criminal investigation will benefit from the present research through access to a more thorough evaluation of identification. This will inform better practice in terms of evidence-gathering, and evidence-admissibility within court. Professor Black and Dr Stevenage have advised both the Crown Prosecution Service, and Defence lawyers in the past on matters of identification, and Professor Whitty is currently working with the Serious Organised Crime Agency (SOCA) to advise on the identification of romance scammers. These activities provide established platforms to disseminate our latest research findings.

Second, the Home Office will benefit from the present research through access to better understanding of identification both as a human- and an automated-process. This needs to be incorporated into the Police and Criminal Evidence (PACE) Act so that evidential standards and identification procedures are sensitive to the factors that affect identification across the multiple modalities through which it can now be demonstrated.

Third, security systems within governmental and industrial agencies on a worldwide stage will benefit through the capacity to develop tailored security software capable of using multiple biometric measures to verify identity. There is a very real movement in this direction given the concern over inefficiencies associated with access systems that rely on user memory (i.e., memory for PIN codes, passwords, or physical identity tokens). Professor Creese has extensive experience in the field of digital security, whilst Dr Guest is a recognised UK expert on signatures and biometrics, having edited two international Standards in this field. Both have extensive contacts with industry and governmental bodies to enable this project to achieve impact in the end-user communities most applicable.

Finally, and ultimately, we anticipate that individuals within society will benefit from the present research. With better tools for human identification, there will bean improvement in the protection of personal privacy and data security, whilst maintaining user acceptability. Dr Stanton Fraser, together with Professors Whitty and Saxby, will work explicitly to examine the legal restrictions surrounding data use, and to consider public opinion on issues of social acceptability, and ethical use of information, given the suggestion within a revised Data Protection Directive to address the 'right' of anonymity. This work will have a valuable place in shaping future legal reforms in such matters.