Abstract: A method of providing portable account information includes associating two accounts (10, 11) and retrieving the details of one account (15) using the identifier of the other. An embodiment of the invention provides management of the association between a user's avatar account 10 and various client applications (11), e.g. for instant messaging or community websites. In addition to management of this association, the invention also handles the diverse login and authentication (12) needs of avatar accounts and the various supported client applications. Rather than have a different avatar for each application, the invention allows the user to have a single avatar account which they can associate (13) with each of the client applications that they use to render (16) and update (17) the avatar. Thus, the user can travel between client applications (11) with a portable digital identity.