A system and method is introduced for flexible user equipment (“UE”) identification. In one embodiment, the method includes providing a first message from a user equipment (110) to a radio access node (120) to resume a passive user equipment context. The message includes a UE identifier (400) having a flag (410) indicating if the user equipment (110) is resuming connectivity to the radio access node (120) and a first local UE identifier (420) for the radio access node (120).