Linden Lab, Second Life’s creator, has unveiled an identity verification system for residents. It’s voluntary right now but necessary if residents want to access restricted regions in the metaverse where explicit sexual or excessively violent content is available.

The service – in beta – uses Aristotle’s Integrity technology and involves entering a Social Security number, driving licence or passport, although the data will not be stored by Linden Lab or Aristotle. This is not as complete as Trufina’s process (we try to prove that the person who is typing in the drivers license/SSN is in fact the owner of that identity attribute – but its a great start.

The 101 responses to the blog post were mostly negative, with quite a few being concerned that either Linden Labs or Aristotle may misuse their identity data. Several users also wanted to keep their anonymity. Linden Labs defended the move saying “Anonymity has long been both a benefit and a challenge for online communities: a benefit because it offers opportunities to reinvent yourself; a challenge when it comes to the creation of trusting relationships. With the option to verify aspects of their real life identity, such as age and name, Second Life Residents can begin to build trust and safety systems inside the virtual world and their virtual community.�

As long as sites and the providers they use make sure the data they collect (either from the user, or via public records checks) is controlled by the user, and not used for ANY other purposes then everybody wins. Such a offering demands a large amount of trust between the user, the site, and the identity provider. Trust which must not compromised.