Social ID Bureau 1 Favorite 

Intro

The Social ID Bureau is handing-out personal identification cards for a limited number of Facebook Social Network citizens, interested in alpha testing.

Be the first among your friends to pick-up your social identification card and explore the future.

What happend?

This project launched 1 week before the accompanying performance in Berlin. It certainly struck some nerves and recieved international media coverage within a couple of days. At the performance we handed-out 150+ "Social Network ID Cards"

Sadly it also recieved legal complaints from Facebook Inc., which is why it's original URL (fbbureau.com), the letters "FB" and the Facebook Inc. logo are no longer used in this piece. The project's new official name is "Social ID Bureau". Slide down or click here for a list of selected press reactions.

Can I See your Facebook ID? (Artists' Statement)

With more than 800 million users Facebook is the dominant identity system on the web. When signing-up for new services around the open web it's quite common to use Facebook Connect instead of creating a new user account. People stop ranting on blog comments because they only allow comments connected to your "real name" aka "Facebook Identity" (till the end of time). For the good or bad we are losing anonymity and Facebook Inc. is establishing order in this "world wild web" (for profit, not necessarily for the good of society).

Governments like Germany have released new passports that offer online identity checks as well, but they will likely never succeed with their technologies given the already existing structure of Facebook, powered by lazieness (or convience). The other way around though - A future where a Facebook Identity becomes more important than any governments' doesn't seem unrealistic. This possible future is already half-way there. What is exciting about this, what can be our role as artists and why should one even bother? Let's find out!

Next time someone needs to "see your ID" - How about showing a Facebook ID card instead of the documents your government gave you? On the web this is common practice for millions of people already. Therefore - Forget privacy. The user's next battle is about nothing less but who controls your identity, and we still might have something to say about it.