Public debate on these complex global issues remains surprisingly ignorant of the history and ideas underpinning individual identification, registration and pigeon-holing. We think of these techniques as modern – but the fact is that recognisable ID systems are almost as old as civilisation itself.
In 2008, Professor Jane Caplan (University of Oxford) and Dr Edward Higgs (University of Essex), supported by an International Networks grant from the Leverhulme Trust to the University of Oxford’s Faculty of History, established ‘Documenting Individual Identity: Historical and Comparative Perspectives since 1500′.
