Separating your personas

The foundation for security and enterprise management

Last time I gave you some definitions of identity, persona and role and their relationship in the identity management hierarchy. We defined "identity" as a person, an individual, a constant that cannot change (validated by DNA) and "persona" as an aspect of identity in a specific situation: office persona, parenting persona and so on.  "Role" is then a specific application within a persona.  In an office persona, for example, you might have a manager role, a mentor role, an employee role, etc.

So what can you do with these concepts?

Each, surprisingly, can have a definition that is unique to the concept, yet independent of the others. That is, just because a role is an aspect of a persona, the same role could exist for different personas - even for the same identity.

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Last time I gave you some definitions of identity, persona and role and their relationship in the identity management hierarchy. We defined "identity" as a person, an individual, a constant that cannot change (validated by DNA) and "persona" as an aspect of identity in a specific situation: office persona, parenting persona and so on.  "Role" is then a specific application within a persona.  In an office persona, for example, you might have a manager role, a mentor role, an employee role, etc.

So what can you do with these concepts?

Each, surprisingly, can have a definition that is unique to the concept, yet independent of the others. That is, just because a role is an aspect of a persona, the same role could exist for different personas - even for the same identity.

If you have an account with a car rental agency, for example, you are filling the role of "automobile renter." This role has certain attributes - a driver's license (with its own ID number from an issuing government agency), a credit card (yet another ID number from a commercial agency) and perhaps an insurance policy (one more ID number from a commercial agency).

You might, though, have two personas with the car rental agency: a "business persona" and a "leisure persona." Your preferences for type of vehicle will differ for the two personas and the credit card "attribute" might differ also. Since the concept of "persona" is still fairly new, most car rental agencies aren't equipped to handle more than one per identity. So you'll need to finesse the problem by establishing two "identities" (actually, two different usernames) with the agency. You might need two separate e-mail addresses and/or two separate phone numbers as well, depending on how the car rental agency indexes their accounts.

You are still you, you have only one identity. You have two personas in this example, the Business Persona and the Leisure Persona. But you also have only one role - that of "vehicle renter." That role has a number of attributes associated with it. Some of those attributes will differ between your two personas, but the object that is the vehicle renter role will be identical between the two personas.

Dave Kearns is a consultant and editor of IdM, the Journal of Identity Management.