erroneous identification and conviction.
Novel identification techniques include forensic genetics (DNA typing) and
digital identity tracking (network user monitoring), which represent real
advances in forensic science. A theoretically interesting aspect of these
techniques is that they do not rely on Leibniz’s Law, but represent probabilistic
approaches to identification, incorporating data in quantitative rather than
qualitative form.
DNA analysis still does not resolve the identical twin problem, but the data-
based probabilistic identity assessment offered by DNA typing provides more
reliable evidence that two samples of a substance came from the same source
than Leibnizian binary decisions of match or no match. The use of DNA
evidence in court is bound to increase and have an effect on the
conceptualization of personal identity in law.
Digital identity tracking makes use of methods that evolved in response to the
spread of digital technologies and distribution of networks. The prototype of
network tracking are ‘cookies’ that record internet surfers’ tastes. However, by
the standards of development speed of digital technology, cookies come from the
Middle Ages. State-of-the-art tracking is about metadata that expose habits,
work schedules, affiliations, and political and religious attachments, among
many others, making customers, citizens, supporters, and enemies of the regime
not just traceable, but entirely transparent. Metadata allow websites and those
who exploit them for their purposes to track the ‘fingerprints’ of digital devices.
For instance, it is possible to retrieve from the browser that you/your device uses
a complete list of all fonts and extensions you have ever installed. In
combination with the online trace you inevitably leave behind when surfing from
one website to another, the tracker is able to construct a very informative profile
of you, a dossier or ‘pseudo identity’ in digitalese, without ever having met you.
‘Pseudo identity’ is an emblematic concept of the age of big data. This is the age
of selling and stealing personal data. It’s the age of China’s Social Credit System
and the National Security Agency cooperating with Google and Facebook; the
age of eiC (electronic identification card), eIDV (electronic identity verification),
IMS (International Mobile Subscriber Identity), and CIU (compulsive internet
use). The satellite navigation systems GPS, Russia’s GLONASS, China’s
BeiDou, and Europe’s Galileo have been indispensable for some time already,