A human identity is a digital representation of an individual person — employee, contractor, partner, or customer — in an organization's identity system, used to authenticate the person and authorize their access.
⚙️ How Does It Work?
Human identities are stored in directory services (AD, Entra ID) or CIAM platforms. They are associated with credentials (passwords, MFA), attributes (name, role, department), and entitlements (what systems they can access).
📍 Where Is It Used?
Every organization with users — IAM systems manage human identities for the workforce, while CIAM platforms manage customer identities.
💡 Real-World Example
A hospital has 5,000 human identities: 3,000 clinical staff, 1,500 administrative staff, and 500 contractors. Each has a unique digital identity in Active Directory with role-based entitlements. Contrast with their 15,000 non-human identities (service accounts, API keys, bots) that vastly outnumber humans.
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