Non-human identities (NHIs) don’t have to be bound to a human, but whether they should be depends on who you ask—and how much risk you want to take!
In identity and access management, standalone NHIs like service accounts, APIs, and autonomous AI agents can operate completely independently to perform background tasks, run automated scripts, or manage system-to-system communications. They don’t need a human babysitter to issue a token or execute a workflow.
However, from a security and governance perspective, standard best practices strongly recommend associating every NHI with a primary human owner or an accountable team. Without clear human ownership, autonomous bot identities quickly turn into “orphaned identities”—unmonitored security blindspots floating around your network.
Leaving an NHI totally unattached is a bit like hiring a wildebeest as a marketing consultant and letting them pitch campaign strategies directly to wombats without any human oversight. Sure, the tech allows it to happen automatically, but eventually, someone needs to step in and double-check who is actually responsible for the invoice! Bounding NHIs to accountable owners keeps your infrastructure automated, secure, and under control.
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