D2.13 Virtual Persons CONCLUSION

Conclusion

In this document, we have given a formal description of the concept of identity in the Information Society in relation with the concept of virtual person (virtual entities that can have rights, duties, obligations and/or responsibilities). We have also presented both an intuitive and a formal description of a two-layer model based on virtual persons. The concept of virtual person used in this model generalizes current uses of the term.

This two-layer model allows a better representation of new forms of identities in the Information Society. The first layer – the physical world – is the collection of all physical entities. Physical persons belong to this world. The second layer – the virtual world – is an abstract layer. It creates an indirection between acting subjects of the physical world and the identifying information related to their actions and/or the objects supporting these actions. Virtual persons belong to the virtual world.

The virtual world allows a unified description of many identity-related concepts that are usually defined separately without taking into consideration their similarities: avatars, pseudonyms, categories, profiles, legal persons, etc. This unified description is based on a generalization of the concepts of virtual persons. Virtual persons can have rights, duties, obligations and/or responsibilities associated to them.

The concept of subject, in the physical world, allows also to handle in a similar way physical entities of different nature that share, for example, some acting capabilities or some identity-related characteristics. 

The indirection between acting subjects of the physical world and the identifying information related to their actions and/or the objects supporting these actions allows a more faithful description of the reality of new forms of identities in the Information Society.

This document does not aim at covering the implications of using such a model, for example in the legal domain. However, it brings the necessary foundations to pursue the research, to investigate further and assess the possible need for new legal entities – based on virtual persons – in order to describe and cover the new paradigms induced by new forms of identities appearing in the Information Society. The precise definitions of the concepts, as well as the model itself, will play a central role in Workpackage 17 on “Abstract Persons”.