Identity Theft

         

            Reading through Caroline Basset’s Identity Theft, made me think of the transformation of the body that we discussed last class. In her essay, Caroline argues the difference between the documented medical information of her accident and the transformational story that is told by the scar on her body.  Basset says, “The scar is permanent but unstable, it has faded and expanded over time” (154). Which raise the question of the relation between “permanent” and what later she calls describing the change on her wound “independent from the substrate”. How can the essence be permanent but separated from its substrate? In this form the transformation is something that keeps an eternity form of a substance but in the same time the transformational continuity will create a form that is “independent from the substrate”. And this development or changing on her scar was not registered by the database because as she put it,  “database cannot register continuity and transformation” (154).  

            On the other hand , the article discuss that Visual and digital database tries to grant the credibility of information and safety of people’s identity, these information are subjected to manipulation, and identities could be subjected to theft and misuse whether intentionally or unintentionally. This provoked the governing authorities to create systems that become kind of digital representation of one’s real body, an electronic form of the physical phenomena of my presence which helps to keep my identity from being stolen: x-rays and fingerprints cannot be substituted by fake ones, if thoughts and passwords could be hijacked, the unique formation of my body cannot.