The superb 'What's in a Name? Some Reflections on the Sociology of Anonymity' by Gary T Marx in (1999) 15(2) The Information Society 99-112 comments
This article lays out some of the conceptual landscape surrounding anonymity and identifiability in contemporary society. The emphasis is on the cultural level - on normative expectations and justifications, more than on describing actual behavior. It is also on the anonymity of individuals rather than of groups or organizations. (Of course these may be linked, as with infiltrators using pseudonyms working for false-front intelligence agencies.)
I offer some defnitions and conceptual distinctions and identify seven dimensions of identity knowledge. I specify social settings where the opposing values of anonymity or identifiability are required by law, policy, or social expectations. I then suggest 13 questions re ̄ ecting several ethical traditions to guide policy development and assessment in this area. While the tone of the article is tentative in the face of the rapidity of change and the complexity of the issues, I conclude by offering one broad principle involving truth in the nature of naming that I think should apply to computer mediated personal communications.
DEFINITIONS AND CONCEPTS
Let us first define anonymity and relate it to privacy, confidentiality, and secrecy. Anonymity is one polar value of a broad dimension of identifiability versus nonidentifiability. To be fully anonymous means that a person cannot be identified according to any of the seven dimensions of identity knowledge to be discussed later. This in turn is part of a broader variable involving the concealment and revelation of personal information and of information more generally.
Identity knowledge is an aspect of informational privacy. The latter involves the expectation that individuals should be able to control information about themselves. Privacy can be differentiated from confidentiality, which involves a relationship of trust between two or more people in which personal information is known but is not to be revealed to others, or is to be revealed only under restricted conditions. Secrecy refers to a broader category of information protection. It can refer to both withholding the fact that particular information exists (e.g., that a pseudonym is in use) and to its content.
Ironically, anonymity is fundamentally social. Anonymity requires an audience of at least one person. One cannot be anonymous on top of a mountain if there is no form of interaction with others and if no one is aware of the person. Compare the solitude of the Beach Boys’ song In My Room, a lonely, introspective, plaint to unrequited love, to Petula Clark’s desire to experience the freedom of being 'Downtown' where 'no one knows your name'. While similar, only the latter is an example of anonymity.
SEVEN TYPES OF IDENTITY KNOWLEDGE
Identity knowledge has multiple components and there are degrees of identifiability. At least seven broad types of identity knowledge can be specified (Table 1). These are (1) legal name, (2) locatability, (3) pseudonyms that can be linked to legal name and/or locatability - literally a form of pseudo-anonymity, (4) pseudonyms that cannot be linked to other forms of identity knowledge - the equivalent of a real anonymity (except that the name chosen may hint at some aspects of a 'real' identity), (5) pattern knowledge, (6) social categorization, and (7) symbols of eligibility/noneligibility.
1. Identification may involve a person’s legal name. Even though names such as John Smith may be widely shared, the assumption is made that there is only one John Smith born to particular parents at a given time and place. Name usually involves connection to a biological or social lineage and can be a key to a vast amount of other information. It tends to convey a literal meaning (e.g., the child of Joseph and Mary). This aspect of identification is usually the answer to the question 'Who are you?'.
The use of first names only, as was said to traditionally be the case for both providers and clients in houses of ill repute, can offer partial anonymity. The question of whether full, last, first, or no name is expected in social settings may appear to be trivial. But it is in fact the kind of little detail in which big social meanings may reside.
TABLETypes of identity knowledge1. Legal name2. Locatability3. Pseudonyms linked to name or location4. Pseudonyms that are not linked to name or locationa. For policy reasonsb. Audience does not realize it’s a pseudonym5. Pattern knowledge6. Social categorization7. Symbols of eligibility/noneligibility issue that only a sociologist could love.
2. Identification can refer to a person’s address. This involves location and a reachability,o whether in actual or cyberspace (a telephone number, a mail or e-mail address, an account number). This need not involve knowing the actual identity or even a pseudonym. But it does involve the ability to locate and take various forms of action, such as blocking, granting access, delivering or picking up, charging, penalizing, rewarding, or apprehending. It answers a a where rather than a who question. This can be complicated by more than one person using the same address.
3. Identification may involve alphabetic or numerical symbols such as a social security number or biometric patterns or pseudonyms that can be linked back to a person or an address under restricted conditions. A trusted intermediary and confidentiality are often involved here. These in effect create a buffer and are a compromise solution in which some protection is given to literal identity or location, while meeting needs for some degree of identification. As with name, the symbol is intended to refer to only one individual (but unlike a given name, which can be shared, letters and numbers are sufficient as unique identifiers, whereas when there is more than one John Smith in question, unique identity requires matching to other aspects of identity, such as birth date and parents or address). Examples include the number given to persons calling tip hot lines for a reward, anonymous bank accounts, on-line services that permit the use of pseudonyms in chat rooms and on bulletin boards, and representations of biometric patterns.
4. Identification may involve symbols, names, or pseudonyms that cannot in the normal course of events be linked back to a person or an address by intermediaries. This may be because of a protective policy against collecting the information. For example, in some states those tested for AIDS are given a number and receive results by calling in their number without ever giving their name or address. Or it may be because a duped audience does not know that the person they are dealing with is using fraudulent identificationÐ for example spies, undercover operatives, and con artists.
5. Identification may be made by reference to distinctive appearance or behavior patterns of persons whose actual identity or locatability is not known (whether because of the impersonal conditions of urban life or secrecy). Being unnamed is not necessarily the same as being unknown. Some information is always evident in face-to-face interaction, because we are all ambulatory autobiographies continuously and unavoidably emitting data for others’ senses and machines. The uncontrollable leakage of some information is a condition of physical and social existence. This has been greatly expanded by new technologies. The patterned conditions of urban life mean that we identify many persons we don’t a knowo (that is, we know neither their names, nor do we know them personally). In everyday encounters (say, riding the subway each day at 8 a.m.) we may come to 'know' other riders in the sense of recognizing them. Skilled graffiti writers may become well known by their 'tags' (signed nicknames) or just their distinctive style, even as their real identity is unknown to most persons (Ferrell, 1996). Persons making anonymous postings to a computer bulletin board may come to be 'known' by others because of the content, tone, or style of their communications. Similarly, detectives may attribute reoccurring crimes to a given individual even though they don’t know the person’s name (e.g., the Unabomber, the Son of Sam, the Red Light Bandit, Jack the Ripper). There are also prosocial examples, such as anonymous donors with a history of giving in predictable ways that makes them 'known' to charities. They are anonymous in the sense that their name and location is not known, but they are different from the anonymous donor who gives only once.
6. Identification may involve social categorization. Many sources of identity are social and do not differentiate the individual from others sharing them (e.g., gender, ethnicity, religion, age, class, education, region, sexual orientation, linguistic patterns, organizational memberships and classifications, health status, employment, leisure activities). Simply being at certain places at particular times can also be a key to presumed identity.
7. Identification may involve certification in which the possession of knowledge (secret passwords, codes) or artifacts (tickets, badges, tattoos, uniforms) or skills (performances such as the ability to swim) labels one as a particular kind of person to be treated in a given way. This is categorical and identifies the possessor as an eligible or ineligible person with no necessary reference to anything more (although the codes and symbols can be highly differentiated with respect to categories of person and levels of eligibility). This is vital to contemporary discussions because it offers a way of balancing control of personal information with legitimate needs such as for reimbursement (e.g., toll roads, phones, photocopy machines, subways) and excluding system abusers. Smart-card technologies with encryption and segmentation make this form of increased importance.
