The curious case of the canoeist from (Seaton) Carew reminded me of the stern notice that greeted me [mumble] years ago: ‘This passport remains the property of Her Majesty’s Government in the United Kingdom and may be withdrawn at any time’. My passport is still a fascination: the complexity of its printing, the attempts to divine national characteristics from the stamps and visas they leave in its pages, the multilingual rubric that embraces ever more of Europe, and ever more pages, renewal upon renewal; but most of all, the way in which it pivots identity between self and state.

It’s not just the passport that’s government property, but the particular form of identity it instantiates. John Darwin isn’t charged with faking his death, but with making a false statement to obtain a passport. Put another way, he tried to give up something that wasn’t his, and that something was himself.

To those exposed to complicated books written by French sorts, the idea that identity is imposed in facets from without is hardly novel. But in this context, ‘identity theft’ seems a strange term. The elements that make it possible, tangible or intangible, may be in your possession, but they’re rarely your property in the Lockean sense, to be used and disposed of at will. Instead, they carry all the anxieties of items on extended loan: which is, in essence, what they are.

And as Ben Goldacre notes, the creep of biometrics subjects bits of your own body to this transformation. It’s a different kind of identity theft: one that takes your property and returns it on loan, reconstituted as identity data.

Here lies the paradox: the repeated instructions (and helpfully-offered subscription services) to protect your identity carry the implication that it’s yours to protect. Except that it isn’t. It might be argued that you have a duty of care, the same that would stop you from leaving your mate’s car unlocked with the keys in the ignition when you borrow it for a late-night beer run. Except that it’s not. Instead, we’re asked to protect something that’s not our own, warned not to give away something that has already been taken.