5 ms·

Here in Italy we are given a Codice Fiscale at birth, which is a string of 13 characters derived by 3 letters of the last name, 3 letters of the first name (usu

by klez 7y ago

Here in Italy we are given a Codice Fiscale at birth, which is a string of 13 characters derived by 3 letters of the last name, 3 letters of the first name (usually these 6 letters are all consonants, but there are exceptions for names like Anna), 2 digits, a letter and two other digits representing the birth day, one letter and the digits representing the birthplace an one last letter which is a checksum. These are state-issued so in case of people that share all those characteristics there's a system in place which changes just one character and gives a different result. Every contract I signed and every interaction with the government required this information, so the kind of mishaps you talk about are not that common here (at least to my knowledge). Also, different from US social security numbers, this is not used as the only credential for important services, so keeping it secret is not needed (also, it can be manually derived in most cases, indeed you know the needed data. The algorithm is public). One other thing that avoids confusion is that father and son can't legally have the same name. EDIT: more info on the Italian Fiscal code https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Italian_fiscal_code_card https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Italian_fiscal_code_card

kartan 7y ago
Same in Spain and Sweden when it comes to fiscal Id. Really useful. But the number is not enough to buy anything or open a bank account. For that you need the physical id card that is as hard as forge as passports. A very good system to make contracts, paying taxes, school registration, etc easy without allowing false impersonation.
- piaste 7y ago
  Sweden's personnummer system is much more elegant - your code is your date of birth followed by a 4-digit unique identifier. Everybody knows their personnummer by heart, while in Italy most people carry their health card around with the 16-character codice fiscale.
  - ivanhoe 7y ago
    Well in Croatia OIB is a random 11 digit number, but still most people I know managed to memorize theirs, especially if you're an entrepreneur running a business and have to fill it all the time.
  - jaclaz 7y ago
    >Everybody knows their personnummer by heart, while in Italy most people carry their health card around with the 16-character codice fiscale. Cannot say about Sweden, but most people I know in Italy also know by heart their Codice Fiscale (whether they carry with them nonetheless the card is another thing).
    - piaste 7y ago
      I know mine by heart and I still get mildly surprised reactions every now and then when I give it to an office worker.
- aianus 7y ago
  How do you use this physical ID card online? Or phrased otherwise, how do you apply for a credit card or similar online?
  - kartan 7y ago
    > How do you use this physical ID card online? You don't. For that, you can get a digital signature. You can go to a police station, or to an embassy and present your physical Id card to get a digital signature. You can use that signature to sign contracts or your tax returns. > how do you apply for a credit card or similar online? In Spain, with your usual bank, you use your login/password and your 2FA. In Sweden, you can use Bank-Id almost everywhere to identify yourself. It is also a digital signature, but it has brother use.
lloeki 7y ago
In France the social security number has that role, in a format described here: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/INSEE_code#National_identification_numbers https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/INSEE_code#National_identifica...
mikorym 7y ago
For administrative purposes it makes sense to uniquely identify people, but for privacy purposes it is a feature to not be uniquely identifiable. I don't think one can get around that tradeoff. In South Africa, if you have someone's ID and also their tax number then it is very easy to commit fraud.
- hyperman1 7y ago
  Not sure. It also means you get blamed for crimes from your same-nameds. I hear stories from the USA where repo men try to pin debts on the wrong people, etc. The rest of the first world mostly has a unique ID for each resident, plus laws that stop abusing it. This seems vastly preferrable.
carlob 7y ago
Also in Italy: my mom has several middle names and she has one set on her national ID, another on her driver's license and the codice fiscale was calculated with only the first given name. She's having so much trouble opening a new bank account that she's probably going to legally change her name (rather than her codice fiscale). I agree with you that in general this system works pretty well, but we also have our nagging issues. In general the problem is that most automated systems ask you for all the info necessary to compute your codice fiscale and then double check what you've entered, if you're one of those cases where one letter had to be changed or something like that, most online forms will complain and give no possibility of recourse.
poizan42 7y ago
Your are lucky. Here in Denmark we have the CPR-number (det Centrale Person Register - the Central Person Register). Unfortunately this number is all to often used as authentication so is supposed to be kept secret. This is of course terribly broken and they get leaked all the time - also they are stamped onto everybody's national health insurance card[0]... [0]: It's the "999999-9996" on https://i.imgur.com/GscmMjX.jpg https://i.imgur.com/GscmMjX.jpg
- CarlHoerberg 7y ago
  Where is the sole number used for authentication? We got the same number in Sweden but the number is not secret, you need it combination with something else like an ID, signature, digital signature etc.
- dcbadacd 7y ago
  In Estonia we have an personal identification code, it is never used as authentication, only for differentiating between people, we have Estonian ID card for authentication and identification.
jaclaz 7y ago
To be picky, there is no "exception", there is a rule that is as follow: For the surname get the first three consonants For the name get the first three consonants. If there are not enough consonants, use as many consonants there are, then start again from the beginning with vowels. If there are not enough consonants and vowels (two characters name) an X is added. I.e. Anna is N (first consonant) N (second consonant) A (first vowel) -> NNA. Ana would be NAA. With a name like (say) Bo of only two letter, a X is added, i.e. BOX https://www.paginainizio.com/service/strutturacodicefiscale.htm https://www.paginainizio.com/service/strutturacodicefiscale....
Kipters 7y ago
It's worth mentioning that in case of ambiguity (people with the same name born the same day in the same city) the algorithm solves it by allowing the 7 numbers in the code to be replaced with letters, thus allowing up to 128 variations of the same fiscal code
- jaclaz 7y ago
  Again to be picky, not really-really, the algorithm does very little. If there is not "homocody" the algorithm is "enough". If there is, then it is allowed to use an algorithm to calculate a different code, BUT this can only be done by the Agenzia delle Entrate that keeps all codes in a database to avoid duplications: https://quifinanza.it/tasse/codice-fiscale-come-si-calcola-e-come-si-corregge-in-caso-di-omocodia/1708/ https://quifinanza.it/tasse/codice-fiscale-come-si-calcola-e... Since the Codice Fiscale comes physically as a credit-card-like piece of plastic, there are no real issues with these "non-regular" codes in person, but - as carlob stated - a lot of online modules (which tend to verify the validity of the supplied Codice Fiscale against the "normal algorithm" applied to the other data supplied in the form, in an attempt to minimize errors/typos) do not usually recognize these "manually" generated by the Agency codes and reject the form. In a perfect world such forms should warn the user that the Codice Fiscale is not valid (i.e. cannot be recreated by the "normal" algorithm) and provide the possibility to explicitly confirm.
  - ithkuil 7y ago
    I've also witnessed the opposite problem: a government office roughly equivalent to the DMV (motorizzazione civile) registering a driving license with a codice fiscale provided by person without checking that it was actually issued by the government. 15 yeas later, another person in a different city, miles away, argued loudly, while trying to file the request to convert a foreign driving license, that she 100% sure she didn't already have a driving license in Italy. (Source: I was waiting in line for my turn and heard every word, increasingly feeling a Kafkaesque grip in my stomach and hoping to never get on the wrong side of Italian burocracy. fwiw, they didn't solve the issue during that session)
dsego 7y ago
Interesting, Croatia moved away from personally identifiable information (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Unique_Master_Citizen_Number https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Unique_Master_Citizen_Number) to randomly chosen digits https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Personal_identification_number_(Croatia) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Personal_identification_number....

by klez 7y ago

kartan 7y ago

Same in Spain and Sweden when it comes to fiscal Id. Really useful. But the number is not enough to buy anything or open a bank account. For that you need the physical id card that is as hard as forge as passports. A very good system to make contracts, paying taxes, school registration, etc easy without allowing false impersonation.

piaste 7y ago
Sweden's personnummer system is much more elegant - your code is your date of birth followed by a 4-digit unique identifier. Everybody knows their personnummer by heart, while in Italy most people carry their health card around with the 16-character codice fiscale.
- ivanhoe 7y ago
  Well in Croatia OIB is a random 11 digit number, but still most people I know managed to memorize theirs, especially if you're an entrepreneur running a business and have to fill it all the time.
- jaclaz 7y ago
  >Everybody knows their personnummer by heart, while in Italy most people carry their health card around with the 16-character codice fiscale. Cannot say about Sweden, but most people I know in Italy also know by heart their Codice Fiscale (whether they carry with them nonetheless the card is another thing).
  - piaste 7y ago
    I know mine by heart and I still get mildly surprised reactions every now and then when I give it to an office worker.
aianus 7y ago
How do you use this physical ID card online? Or phrased otherwise, how do you apply for a credit card or similar online?
- kartan 7y ago
  > How do you use this physical ID card online? You don't. For that, you can get a digital signature. You can go to a police station, or to an embassy and present your physical Id card to get a digital signature. You can use that signature to sign contracts or your tax returns. > how do you apply for a credit card or similar online? In Spain, with your usual bank, you use your login/password and your 2FA. In Sweden, you can use Bank-Id almost everywhere to identify yourself. It is also a digital signature, but it has brother use.

lloeki 7y ago

In France the social security number has that role, in a format described here: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/INSEE_code#National_identification_numbers https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/INSEE_code#National_identifica...

mikorym 7y ago

For administrative purposes it makes sense to uniquely identify people, but for privacy purposes it is a feature to not be uniquely identifiable. I don't think one can get around that tradeoff. In South Africa, if you have someone's ID and also their tax number then it is very easy to commit fraud.

hyperman1 7y ago
Not sure. It also means you get blamed for crimes from your same-nameds. I hear stories from the USA where repo men try to pin debts on the wrong people, etc. The rest of the first world mostly has a unique ID for each resident, plus laws that stop abusing it. This seems vastly preferrable.

carlob 7y ago

Also in Italy: my mom has several middle names and she has one set on her national ID, another on her driver's license and the codice fiscale was calculated with only the first given name. She's having so much trouble opening a new bank account that she's probably going to legally change her name (rather than her codice fiscale). I agree with you that in general this system works pretty well, but we also have our nagging issues. In general the problem is that most automated systems ask you for all the info necessary to compute your codice fiscale and then double check what you've entered, if you're one of those cases where one letter had to be changed or something like that, most online forms will complain and give no possibility of recourse.

poizan42 7y ago

Your are lucky. Here in Denmark we have the CPR-number (det Centrale Person Register - the Central Person Register). Unfortunately this number is all to often used as authentication so is supposed to be kept secret. This is of course terribly broken and they get leaked all the time - also they are stamped onto everybody's national health insurance card[0]... [0]: It's the "999999-9996" on https://i.imgur.com/GscmMjX.jpg https://i.imgur.com/GscmMjX.jpg

CarlHoerberg 7y ago
Where is the sole number used for authentication? We got the same number in Sweden but the number is not secret, you need it combination with something else like an ID, signature, digital signature etc.
dcbadacd 7y ago
In Estonia we have an personal identification code, it is never used as authentication, only for differentiating between people, we have Estonian ID card for authentication and identification.

jaclaz 7y ago

To be picky, there is no "exception", there is a rule that is as follow: For the surname get the first three consonants For the name get the first three consonants. If there are not enough consonants, use as many consonants there are, then start again from the beginning with vowels. If there are not enough consonants and vowels (two characters name) an X is added. I.e. Anna is N (first consonant) N (second consonant) A (first vowel) -> NNA. Ana would be NAA. With a name like (say) Bo of only two letter, a X is added, i.e. BOX https://www.paginainizio.com/service/strutturacodicefiscale.htm https://www.paginainizio.com/service/strutturacodicefiscale....

Kipters 7y ago

It's worth mentioning that in case of ambiguity (people with the same name born the same day in the same city) the algorithm solves it by allowing the 7 numbers in the code to be replaced with letters, thus allowing up to 128 variations of the same fiscal code

jaclaz 7y ago
Again to be picky, not really-really, the algorithm does very little. If there is not "homocody" the algorithm is "enough". If there is, then it is allowed to use an algorithm to calculate a different code, BUT this can only be done by the Agenzia delle Entrate that keeps all codes in a database to avoid duplications: https://quifinanza.it/tasse/codice-fiscale-come-si-calcola-e-come-si-corregge-in-caso-di-omocodia/1708/ https://quifinanza.it/tasse/codice-fiscale-come-si-calcola-e... Since the Codice Fiscale comes physically as a credit-card-like piece of plastic, there are no real issues with these "non-regular" codes in person, but - as carlob stated - a lot of online modules (which tend to verify the validity of the supplied Codice Fiscale against the "normal algorithm" applied to the other data supplied in the form, in an attempt to minimize errors/typos) do not usually recognize these "manually" generated by the Agency codes and reject the form. In a perfect world such forms should warn the user that the Codice Fiscale is not valid (i.e. cannot be recreated by the "normal" algorithm) and provide the possibility to explicitly confirm.
- ithkuil 7y ago
  I've also witnessed the opposite problem: a government office roughly equivalent to the DMV (motorizzazione civile) registering a driving license with a codice fiscale provided by person without checking that it was actually issued by the government. 15 yeas later, another person in a different city, miles away, argued loudly, while trying to file the request to convert a foreign driving license, that she 100% sure she didn't already have a driving license in Italy. (Source: I was waiting in line for my turn and heard every word, increasingly feeling a Kafkaesque grip in my stomach and hoping to never get on the wrong side of Italian burocracy. fwiw, they didn't solve the issue during that session)

dsego 7y ago

Interesting, Croatia moved away from personally identifiable information (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Unique_Master_Citizen_Number https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Unique_Master_Citizen_Number) to randomly chosen digits https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Personal_identification_number_(Croatia) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Personal_identification_number....