Sheila Brown's List: Digital Identity

"Increasingly, we are living double lives. There is our physical, everyday existence.  And there is our digital identity, the sum of all the digitally available information about us. As this information grows in volume and variety, the picture of us that it creates is becoming surprisingly complete. And valuable.
For organizations, the opportunities digital identity presents are enormous. Applications that leverage personal data can boost efficiency, help focus research and marketing efforts, and spur the creation of personalized products and services that, in turn, spur revenues. For consumers, the benefits are compelling, too: faster service, lower prices, and products better suited to their needs, to name a few."

Basically, the essential and unique characteristics of an entity are what identify it. These characteristics might include, among other things, the unchanging physical traits of the person, his preferences, or other people's perceptions of the individual's personality. The skills that a person possesses can also become part of one's identity. For example, a person's identity could include the fact that he "has the ability to drive" or that he "has brown hair." Some characteristics, such as height, have one correct setting. Those traits of an individual that reflect someone else's perceptions do not have to have an absolute setting. Bob may set Alice's "is friendly" flag to true, whereas Charles may set the same flag to false. Even if Bob and Charles agree on what should be the flag's setting for Alice, Alice's own view may differ from theirs. Thus, in practice there is a degree of fuzziness to the definition of an entity's identity, and most certainly to how it is perceived by others.