FB Bureau - a service by Tobias Leingruber

Forget privacy - The user's next battle is about nothing less but who owns our Identity. This project aims to bring focus on Facebook beeing our dominant identity management system in a playful and non-opinionated way. We think it's time to hand-out actual FB ID cards and explore the future.The idea came when Tobias was crossing the border from Canada to the U.S., and the border officer jokingly asked him: "So - What is your Facebook Name?"

Facebook Inc. is the dominant identity management system on the web. By controlling our (online) identities, paired with our social data it's not very hard to imagine the establishment of a world-wide valid ID, controlled by a corporation and not by one government. When discussions concerning the Facebook system (e.g. about privacy) finally reach mainstream minds and media, it is often too late to do much about it. Therefore we think it's time to explore this possible future now - *before* "I agree" buttons are clicked and code is established. After Lawrence Lessig - The code is the law!

The forerunner of this project is FB Resistance, a series of workshops to encourage people to question the rules and restrictions of Facebook by showing them the basics of web technologies, open data and creating little "hacks".

Tobias Leingruber (@tbx) is an artist and "new media" communication designer, Merz Akademie Stuttgart. His work is exploring and exposing the mutual impacts of networked communication technologies to human society, in the belief to contribute to a positive design of it's future.

As an advocate for freedom on the web he has worked with many artists and organisations such as the F.A.T. Lab, Artzilla.org, Silicon Sentier and the Mozilla Foundation (Firefox). He's active in the internet start-up and art scene.

His latest projects include FB Resistance and Mozilla Demoparty. His work has been exhibited in galleries and home computers worldwide and featured by mainstream media such as the NY Times, LA Times, Wired, Spiegel, 3sat(TV) or Liberation.fr.