Computer Giants Team To Protect IDs On Web

The Berkman Center for Internet and Society at the Harvard Law School is teaming up with major players in the software industry to give greater control of personal information to individuals.

The project, nicknamed “Higgins,” would issue identity cards to individuals that would contain information that they would then be able to share with others.

John H. Clippinger, a senior fellow at the Berkman Center, said that the key to the Higgins system is that private information is located in “cells,” so an individual can choose what information to share. This means that individuals could choose to share their medical records to help in a study but could withhold their name. Or they could prove that they are over age 21 without revealing their Social Security numbers.

The identity cards could be linked to information such as job history, buying habits, internet browsing patterbs, and bank account information.

Clippinger says that the current state of internet security leaves individuals’ information vulnerable,

“When the net was invented, no one gave [privacy concerns] a lot of thought,” Clippinger said. “There’s so much surveillance technology that’s going on right now that you’re dealing with some serious privacy and civil liberty issues.”

The Berkman Center plans to test Higgins at the College later this month, giving students the opportunity to obtain their own identity cards to try out the system, according to Clippinger. He said he expects some of the most useful feedback to come from students.

The program’s partners include IBM, Novell, and Microsoft, according to Clippinger. The Higgins project is open source, meaning that anyone will be able to see the code behind the technology.

The popular internet browser Mozilla Firefox and the operating system Linux are also open source programs.

The code-name “Higgins” comes from the name of a long-tailed Tasmanian mouse, which represents the many markets that could use this technology.

—Staff writer Jillian M. Bunting can be reached jbunting@fas.harvard.edu.