The Political Philosophy of Digital Identity

With the launch of GOV.UK Verify in 2016, the British Government claimed to have developed a secure, flexible and cost-effective way of identifying and authenticating online
users of its public services. Despite slow uptake of the novel federated digital identity scheme1, which stores no centralised database of users or their attributes, the plan is now to extend its
remit beyond public services usage alone (Bouchard, 2017). My proposed research topic is predominantly a normative critique of this expansion of Verify to private-sector businesses
and organisations. Through practical and theoretical analysis, I will investigate the effects that opening Verify up to the private sector might have on the intertwined digital and physical
identities of British citizens, and the secondary effects this might entail for their liberty and participation in the public sphere. Throughout, contrast and comparison with the aborted
National ID Card scheme - as well as the corporate digital identities that many citizens already possess - will be drawn. Ultimately, this case study will lead me to modify existing theories of
online identity and privacy to better accommodate federated digital identity systems and the prospect of government-backed identity assurance in the private-sector. This will in turn
generate policy recommendations for the future, with emphasis placed on increasing user privacy and control by conceiving of Verify as a public utility to which citizens have a right.
Whilst technical analyses of the federated identity systems underpinning Verify are plentiful (E.g. Tsakalakis et al, 2016; Stalla-Bourdillon et al, 2018), and some research has been done
into the social effects of its public-sector usage (Brandão et al, 2015), there is a notable absence of academic discussion of the socio-political impacts that the forthcoming private-sector
expansion could have. Exploring how such an expansion will affect previous political, social, and philosophical considerations of governmental identity systems is thus vitally important and
timely, as Verify forms the cornerstone of the Government Digital Strategy (GDS). This means the project will have real-world applicability to contemporary and future British politics. A
fuller understanding of the benefits and risks that Verify's expansion presents to a user's digital/analogue identity, privacy, security and freedoms would provide a much-needed
academic basis for anticipating the issues that surround the proposed scheme and others like it.
Research Questions
1. What are the practical impacts of, and the political reasons for, expanding Verify to the
private-sector?
2. What are the potential philosophical and ethical issues surrounding this expansion?
a. How are digital identities separate to and enmeshed with physical identities?
b. How far can traditional theories of identity respond to federated identity?
c. How does Verify compare to existing corporate or governmental digital identities?
3. Should a Verify identity be thought of as a public utility to which citizens have a right?