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This taxonomy assumes a framework in which technology's objective is to serve the individual towards his/her self-directed outcomes. In as much as engineers introduce designations such as identity as well as other terms to describe objectives or operational aspects of technology, must establish functional definition of these terms before committing a concept to computer code. As such the objective of this taxonomy project is to provide a peer-reviewed library which can reliably serve as a reference for engineers in general, and software engineers aiming to facilitate legally relevant activities (i.e. commercial) in particular.

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RE: Identity (our original starting point) - Despite disagreements among scholars of social sciences, philosophers, and psychologists about many facets of identity, a general consensus about its uniquely human quality can be observed. Further separating human beings from objects and other living organisms are the ability to self-reflect and act with intent. Aside from situational and/or reflexive expressions, the basis for the latter is most often rooted in the sum of experiences, and recall thereof. Barring significant advances in human brain-monitoring technologies, engineering efforts serving human intentions thus far are largely limited to levels of observance and interpretation. In so far as this threshold is breached by technical implementations - i.e. software-assisted "social engineering" (a form of "hacking" human-assisted processes), definitions must allow for the attribution of human agency to surface such violations.

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Current definitions included in this Wiki should largely be considered fragments, and have been retrieved from open-source academic resources.

At the time of the last update of this document (02/06/2024), there are no technologies addressing identity management. Solutions using the latter description can readily be re-classified by the type and purpose of data collection: i.e. identification, including (for) access management and authentication, profiling, certification, credentialing, etc.