Following their European e-Identity Conference, eema, an independent association for IT professionals, businesses and governments, has predicted that by 2020 digital identities will have a significant impact on the daily lives of the world’s population and that this is already the case in the more technologically-advanced, Internet-ready societies. At the two-day conference in Barcelona, where delegates from 20 countries across Europe, North America and the Far East met to debate the key issues surrounding the realities of digital identity today, it was asserted that businesses and governments are waking up to the fact that their future success will depend on the effective and ethical management of a complex network of digital identity relationships with their employees, partners and customers.