We live digitally immersed, connected to an invisible network that accompanies us in every daily gesture: from online shopping to digital signatures, from bank account management to social profiles. Yet, in this environment that we perceive as familiar, We often tread lightly, ignoring real and increasingly risks, such as Online IDentity Theft (OIDT).
In the so-called “risk society”, as sociologists such as Ulrich Beck (1992) and Anthony Giddens (1990) define it, modernity does not eliminate dangers: it transforms them. The risk society – the result of modernisation and globalisation – produces risks of various kinds, which are increasingly wide-ranging, complex, interconnected and difficult to predict and control. Thus, while new technologies improve our lives, they also generate vulnerabilities that are difficult to predict. In particular, digital risk is a phenomenon that affects millions of people, often unaware of their daily exposure to cyber threats.
In Europe, more than half of citizens (56%) is concerned about the possibility of online identity theft (Eurobarometer, 2025). But this awareness rarely translates into safe behaviors.
The haste, the need to simplify, misplaced trust and the nonchalance with which users move online contribute to making many individuals’ easy prey to cyber-attacks. Hackers no longer limit themselves to technically targeting systems, but act through social engineering techniques: deceptive e-mails, fake sites, messages that exploit human psychology to gain access to sensitive data. This is where the line between technological risk and social behavior becomes blurred.
Digital identity is now an integral part of ourselves. It is not just a technical fact about us, a number, or a password: it is our digital face, a partially or completely extension of who we are in the online sphere.
Therefore, when digital identity is violated, the damage is not only economic, but psychological, emotional, relational. The loss of control over one’s identity leads to anxiety, loss of confidence, and in some cases even social isolation.
However, not everyone manages these risks in the same way.
The youngest, digital natives may err on the side of superficiality; the elderly, often excluded from digital skills, are even more vulnerable. The digital divide, then, is measured not only in access to the net, but in the ability to understand and manage its dangers. And this becomes a social problem, not just a technical one.
In a world where our lives are fragmented among dozens of apps, platforms, and profiles, we get used to living with risk as if it were inevitable.
It is a psychological mechanism known as the normalization of danger. Sharing too much on social networks or using the same password all the time can be harmful, but we do it anyway because it is convenient, quick, immediate. Until the day something goes wrong.
Yet, there are tools and good practices to protect ourselves. Regularly updating devices, using multi-factor authentication, being wary of suspicious messages, maintaining a critical attitude are actions within everyone’s reach.
The real challenge, however, is cultural. Building awareness, promoting digital education, spreading crucial information, and perceiving the ethical dimension of being online that is not limited to IT skills, but also addressed the social and psychological implications is the current challenge of being media citizens. Only in this way can we turn fear into knowledge, and vulnerability into strength. And online, as in real life, security is never a given. It is a daily, rational, personal and collective condition.
Plava, A. University of Bologna
References
Eurobarometer (2025). The State of the Digital Decade. Available online: https://digital-strategy.ec.europa.eu/en/library/digital-decade-2025-special-eurobarometer
Beck U. (1992). Risk Society: Towards a New Modernity. London: Sage Publications.
Giddens A. (1990). Consequences of Modernity. Cambridge, England: Polity Press.