The image of citizens (identity) plays a key role in citizen and government relationships and identifiability is perceived relevant in many contexts of public administration. This is particularly the case where citizens can exercise rights and claim benefits, and for various purposes, like administration and registration, public safety, security, general law enforcement, policy-making, citizen mobility, and, more generally, to exercise control. Citizen identities as constructed and maintained by government are changing in the information age: they become ever richer and more complete. Information from different sources is linked together to form comprehensive accounts of individuals. Simple records pertaining to clients or citizens are increasingly enriched by other data to form more complete pictures of the individuals involved. Up to now, this mainly concerned data provided by the individuals (the data subjects) themselves, or on the interpretation or decision of the record keepers
