Traceability to real-world identity

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Chris Morris
Anyone can register for an ORCID id under any name. Authenticating with ORCID is evidence that you are the person who registered that id, but not that you really are accurately named in the ORCID record. This is OK for some purposes, but it also allows some attacks, e.g. reputational ones. It would be useful if there was an optional second step to registration, in which a trusted institution can validate the ORCID record. Many services would rightly continue to accept unvalidated ORCID identities, but for some purposes traceability to the legal and physical person is essential.
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  • Official comment
    Alainna Wrigley

    Hello,

    To follow up:

    ORCID now offers sign with institutional accounts in supported federations. For more information, see:

    What was my password again? http://orcid.org/blog/2016/05/21/what-was-my-password-again
    Different ways to sign into ORCID http://support.orcid.org/knowledgebase/articles/892920-different-ways-to-sign-into-orcid
    Sign into ORCID with institutional credentials https://members.orcid.org/institution-sign-in

    Warm regards,
    ORCID Community Engagement and Support

    --
    Hi,

    Thanks for the suggestion. We're actually working on a feature that will offer a way to trace a researcher to a real-world identity. We will do this by allowing users to log in using their institutions credentials, which will tie their ORCID iD to their University profile. I'll update this idea as we make progress with this new feature.

    Best,
    -Catalina
    ORCID Support

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  • Edzer Pebesma
    Agreed - it's still pretty trivial to create a fake ORCID account, all that's needed is a working email address. In addition to institutional trust, mutual trust between ORCID users could already create some sort of a web of trust.
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  • teambuilding24
    i thinks this is impossible to prevent this :3
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  • Chris Morris
    That is great. One extra piece of metadata is needed: does the institution check legal documents before issuing an email address? Mine does, but perhaps some universities issue email addresses to remote students, who have never been on campus.
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  • Raymond Yee
    keybase.io is worth studying in terms of how it verifies a user's identities embedded in other services.
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  • Andy Mabbett
    rel-me, which was implemented in ORCID profiles a while ago: http://support.orcid.org/forums/175591-orcid-ideas-forum/suggestions/3271302-add-rel-me-to-links-to-users-websites goes some way to addressing this.
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  • Andy Mabbett
    See also my blog post: http://pigsonthewing.org.uk/public-key-in-orcid-profile/
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  • Emma Friesen
    Please be careful with this features. Not all scholars work for a university. Much of the research workforce is casualised, meaning we're on short term contracts and frequently changing institutions and affiliations. ORCID will also need to provide very, very clear information on what happens to an author's ORCID iD details when they are no longer have institutional credentials at the university or institutional affiliation.
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  • Emma Friesen
    Please be careful about this. Tying ORCID iDs to "university" profiles will be a huge problem for authors who do not have permanent positions at a university. Many authors are on short-term, casual contracts which means affiliations (to universities/institutions/organisations) change frequently. ORCID will need to provide very, very clear information on what happens to an author's ORCID iD details when their university/institutional affiliation is no longer current and they can't log in to the university system. Please also be aware that some universities (eg Uni of Qld, UQ) do not give students access to an institutional repository. Hence student authors will not be able to link their iD to a university profile.
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  • Emma Friesen
    Please be careful about this. Tying ORCID iDs to "university" profiles will be a huge problem for authors who do not have permanent positions at a university. Many authors are on short-term, casual contracts which means affiliations (to universities/institutions/organisations) change frequently. ORCID will need to provide very, very clear information on what happens to an author's ORCID iD details when their university/institutional affiliation is no longer current and they can't log in to the university system. Please also be aware that some universities (eg Uni of Qld, UQ) do not give students access to an institutional repository (UQ eSpace). Hence student authors cannot link their iD to a university profile to assert affiliation. This is especially problematic for students writing a thesis by publication.
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  • Martin Thoma
    See also: http://support.orcid.org/forums/175591-orcid-ideas-forum/suggestions/11573103-add-the-possibility-to-upload-public-ssh-keys
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