A non-human identity (NHI) is a digital identity that represents a non-person entity capable of authenticating or performing actions, such as an application, workload, service, device, script, bot or AI agent. The identity is the subject; its certificate, token, API key or secret is a credential.
NHI governance requires inventory, verified ownership, purpose, lifecycle triggers, least privilege, credential controls and behavioral monitoring without assuming an HR-driven JML process.