The Sociology of Personal Identification

Abstract

Systems drawing on databases of personal information increasingly shape life experiences and outcomes across a range of settings, from consumer credit and policing to immigration, health, and employment. How do these systems identify and reidentify individuals as the same unique persons and differentiate them from others? This article advances a general sociological theory of personal identification that extends and improves earlier work by theorists like Goffman, Mauss, Foucault, and Deleuze. Drawing on examples from an original ethnographic study of identity theft and a wide range of social scientific literature, our theory treats personal identification as a historically evolving organizational practice. In doing so, it offers a shared language, a set of concepts for sensitizing researchers’ attention to important aspects of personal identification that often get overlooked while also facilitating comparisons across historical periods, cultural contexts, substantive domains, and technological mediums.

Theorizing Omission: State Strategies for Withholding Official Recognition of Personhood

“…I follow Caplan and Torpey’s (2001:5–6) observation that “identification and recognition are ineluctably conjoined in the modern world, and are the prerequisite for individual and collective claims against the state and other authorities.” de Souza Leão (2022:9) details the “relational dimension of legibility,” highlighting how state agencies formulate projects of legibility not unilaterally but with a mind to how they may be perceived by actors positioned domestically, internationally, and internally within the state apparatus. Brensinger and Eyal (2021) theorize personal identification systems as comprising coordination and compromise by networks of actors consisting of the surveilling and the surveilled. Kim (2016:8) balances attention to the macropolitical dynamics of transborder membership building with an “agentic portrayal” of how classification and identification regimes are contested, negotiated, and creatively subverted at the micropolitical level.…”

Identity Theft, Trust Breaches, and the Production of Economic Insecurity

“…These forces propelled the construction of increasingly detailed “data doubles,” virtual representations of individuals used in organizational practice (Poster 1990; see also Haggerty and Ericson 2000). Businesses and government agencies now rely on data doubles to identify individuals and evaluate them for a myriad of purposes, including calculating crime and child abuse risks, tracking immigration and educational statuses, and allocating resources like credit, healthcare, housing, and public benefits (Brensinger and Eyal 2021; Eubanks 2018; Kiviat 2019; Lageson 2020; Rosen et al 2021). Individual well-being and access to opportunity depend to a growing extent on personal data.…”

“…The wide circulation and use of personal data generate opportunities for and incentivize its misappropriation (Curran 2023; Marron 2008; Solove 2002). To address this vulnerability, organizations utilize identification systems that involve checking physical cards, scanning biometrics, analyzing computer metadata, and other techniques (Brensinger and Eyal 2021). The financial industry, in particular, has invested heavily in anti-fraud systems aimed at limiting unauthorized access to credit and other financial resources (Gates 2010).…”