The path dependency of national electronic identities: A comparison of innovation processes in four European countries

• Published in: Identity in the information society 2010-07, Vol.3 (1), p.111-153
• Main Authors: Kubicek, Herbert, Noack, Torsten
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• Subjects: Computer Science; Ethics; Legal Aspects of Computing; Philosophy of Technology; Social Sciences
• ISSN: 1876-0678; 1876-0678
• DOI: 10.1007/s12394-010-0050-2

This paper compares the four national electronic Identity Management Systems (eIDMS), which have been described in the previous chapters. The section “ Similarities and differences between four national eIDMS ” will highlight the differences between these systems conceived as socio-technical systems with regard to the eID itself, the eID cards as tokens, the authentication processes as well as the procedures for distribution and personalisation, the support provided for installing the technology and any provider-related regulation. The section “ A three-fold path dependency ”, according to the conceptual framework presented in the introductory chapter to this special issue, compares the new electronic systems with the previous ones in each country, in order to assess the continuation or changes with regard to the organisational, technological and regulatory path of development. The following sections explain the differences between the paths chosen and the path-related changes by analysing the actor constellation of the institutional actors, in particular the policy field and the power structure, as well as the context in which the policy makers made their choices, looking at privacy and “Staatsverständnis” in particular. Finally the diffusion and usage of the eID function will be compared and analysed, discussing to what extent the new institution has made a contribution to solving the policy problem it was developed for, e.g. providing a stronger authentication in order to meet security concerns regarding e-government and e-commerce transactions and avoiding new privacy infringements. Using grounded theory, the explanations provided have the status of generalisations derived from the four cases. They have to be considered as hypotheses, which will be checked for other countries in the following papers of this special issue. The comparison of the four cases in this article shows a high degree of path dependency. Most of the differences between the new systems are just a continuation of differences between the previous systems although they are to solve the same problem and can draw on the same technologies. But most astonishing is the finding that these differences between the systems do not influence diffusion and use of the eID function in the respective countries.