Probing, mocking and prototyping: participatory approaches to identity infrastructuring

Since the 1980s, PD has been expanding its scope in terms of scale of information systems as well as diversity of participants, settings and design techniques. A current frontier of PD is infrastructuring, the development of large scale systems that serve a wide range of needs of varied 'publics' in an ideally taken-for-granted manner. This paper takes a participatory approach to one prominent area of contemporary infrastructure development, that of jurisdictional identity schemes. Such developments pose significant privacy and security risks. However, for the most part ID scheme expansion is being conducted without the active participation of those most directly affected. We address this concern through a series of action research 'interventions' into the development of proposed North American ID schemes. We sought to turn what is often treated as a dry, technical topic into an open, accessible and even fun collective enterprise. Drawing on 'classic' PD precepts, such as iteration, realistic use scenarios, ethnographically informed fieldwork, situated reflection, and mock-ups and prototypes, we experimented publically with various artifacts that range from a mock RFID scheme to an Android smartphone digital ID wallet app. Based on this experience, we reflect on lessons for the PD community in terms of how it might approach the growing need for participatory infrastructuring.