SECAI Core · phase 10 of 15 · noun

Identification

The process by which a user account (and its credentials) is issued to the correct person. Sometimes referred to as enrollment.

The Explain card

Plain English
Identification is the process of issuing a user account and its credentials to the correct person. It is sometimes called enrollment, and it happens before any login.
Example
A new data scientist joins. HR confirms their identity, IT creates an account tied to that verified person, and an API key for the AI platform is issued to that account rather than borrowed from a colleague.
Why it matters
Every later control, authentication, authorization and accounting, assumes the account belongs to who you think. Sloppy identification means a perfectly authenticated stranger.
Hook
Issuing the badge to the right face.

Word knowledge

How the word is built, where it came from, and what it sits beside in memory.

In a sentence

In the IAM console, identification maps the new ML engineer's HR record to a unique user ID before the platform issues an API key.

How it is built
  • ident- root the same
  • -ific- combining form making
  • -ation suffix action or process
Where it came from
Origin
Medieval Latin identificatio and English identify plus -ation, from Late Latin identificare, to make the same, from identitas (sameness, from Latin idem, the same) plus facere, to make
Entered the language
1640s
What changed
The noun first named the act of treating two things as the same. By the 1850s it named the act of determining who or what something is. By 1947 it also named the document that does that work. Computing later set it next to authentication as the naming step that comes first.
How it is spelled
Pattern
Verbs in -ify form nouns in -ification: identify becomes identification, with y written as i
Pattern
The c of Latin facere stays c in -fication; English never writes identifisation
Pattern
tion after a spells /ʃən/
Breaks the pattern
Spoken English often clips the noun to ID, written in capitals

Spelled like

  • classification
  • verification
  • specification
  • notification
Broken into chunks
  • ident
    • identity
    • identical
    • identify
  • ific
    • specific
    • magnificent
    • certificate
  • ation
    • authentication
    • authorization
    • classification
What it sits beside

Same subject

Same shape

  • classification
  • verification
  • specification
  • qualification

Identity lifecycle

-ification nouns

  • classification
  • verification
  • specification

Identity family

  • identity
  • identical
  • identify

Where it sits in the deck

Phase 10: Identity, Access, and Cryptographic Foundations

Before examining threats to systems, establish the foundational security primitives — identity, authentication, authorization, and the cryptography underpinning them.

Neighbours in this phase