THE ARCHITECTURE OF IDENTITY: Embedding privacy in market institutions

Abstract

As the Internet becomes integrated into the institutional world around it, attention has increasingly been drawn to the diverse ways in which information technologies mediate human relationships. As an increasingly commercial Internet has been employed to capture personally identifiable information, privacy concerns have intensified. To analyse these matters more systematically, this article considers the ideas about human identity that have been implicit in the development of economics and computer science. The two fields have evolved along parallel tracks, starting with an assumption of perfect transparency and moving toward a more sophisticated appreciation of individuals' private informational states. Progress in the analysis and resolution of privacy problems will require that this evolution be taken seriously and continued.