persession

Persession is a term used to describe the deliberate persistence of a user's identity, preferences, and context across multiple interaction sessions with a digital service. While not a standardized term in most literature, persession is used to distinguish long-term continuity from ephemeral, single-visit session data. It encompasses the continuation of login state, personalized settings, and user-specific content across visits, devices, or time.

Implementation and scope: Persession can be achieved through a combination of authentication tokens, server-side user profiles, and client-side storage such as cookies or local storage, along with cloud-based syncing across devices. It commonly includes preserving login status, language or theme preferences, and personal content like shopping carts, bookmarks, or recently viewed items. The extent of persession is governed by user consent, privacy controls, and data retention policies.

Applications: E-commerce platforms use persession to restore cart contents and tailor recommendations; productivity and collaboration tools maintain user preferences and templates; gaming and social networks keep personalized dashboards and feeds across sessions.

Privacy and security: Effective persession relies on transparent data practices and user consent. It raises concerns about cross-device tracking and profiling and necessitates data minimization, clear controls to disable persistence, and robust security measures to protect stored data. Legal frameworks may regulate what data can be persisted and for how long.

See also: session management, persistent login, user profiling, privacy-by-design.