Digital Identity Infrastructures: Between Path Dependencies and State Reconfigurations
We often tend to think that the digitalization of processes that have been in place for decades does not lead to radical changes, but simply to efficiency and speed. This is particularly evident in identification processes, which have proliferated due to the digital transition. We no longer need to identify ourselves just to cross a border or take a plane, but also to order a pizza online or buy a train ticket. This paper aims to demonstrate that the digitalization of identity is not just a matter of bytes, but radically challenges the world in which individual identities are built, as well as the organization of inter-institutional relationships that we take for granted. With the digital infrastructures developed for identification purposes, what we have called the “State” for more than four centuries is undergoing invisible changes that can nevertheless activate long-lasting transformations. The paper will consider case studies from the new European identification system (EUDI Wallet), from the registration of people on the move at European borders, from the Italian case of the central population registry.
Speaker: Annalisa Pelizza, Professor of Social Studies of Science and Technology at the Università di Bologna and at the the Department of Digital Design and Information Studies, Aarhus University. She is President of STS Italia, member of the editorial board of Big Data & Society and Tecnoscienza. Her research on governance through data infrastructures studies how datafication brings about long-term transformations in modern institutions. She has received funding from the European Commission under the pillar “Excellence in Science”.
Introduction: Alvise Mattozzi (Lecturer in Social Studies of Science and Technology, Politecnico di Torino)