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In some countries, identity documents are in relatively frequent use. The number of authorised strangers who would have access to one's identity document might

In some countries, identity documents are in relatively frequent use. The number of authorised strangers who would have access to one's identity document might be significantly higher in these jurisdictions than, say, the number who would be able to view Tony Abbott's passport number. I'm thinking of - for instance - the 'personnummer' in Sweden (I've heard friends recite theirs in public when asked for them). Q: Should (merely) the number from your passport really be considered a secret?

toyg 6y ago
In theory no, but in practice yes. It's the same for a lot of metadata about our lives that routinely doubles up as authentication factor, e.g. "to verify your identity, can you please confirm the first line of your address and your postcode?"... Most of my neighbours know that!
- extraduder_ire 6y ago
  As an example of metadata revealing a lot about you: Ireland got a postcode system in 2015 (the last time they considered implementing postcodes to improve autosorting, they were so late to the party that "an post" (Irish postal service) had OCR machines good enough to just read the whole address) which assigns each residence in the country a 7-digit alphanumerical code. Called an "Eircode" [1] It is purported to be a solution to packages getting lost or delayed, and an unambiguous way of giving someone a building's address. An Eircode can be resolved into a full postal address, and GPS co-ordinates for the address. e.g, here's some Eircodes; Facebook's headquarters: D02 Y098 President's house: D08 E1W3 Data protection commission: D02 RD28 To get the info for any of these, check out: https://finder.eircode.ie/ https://finder.eircode.ie/ Personal note: I'm not too jazzed on the specifics of the implementation, but it sure is handy when you're shitfaced and can trivially explain exactly where you live to a food-delivery driver over the phone. [1]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Postal_addresses_in_the_Republic_of_Ireland#Eircode https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Postal_addresses_in_the_Republ...

toyg 6y ago

In theory no, but in practice yes. It's the same for a lot of metadata about our lives that routinely doubles up as authentication factor, e.g. "to verify your identity, can you please confirm the first line of your address and your postcode?"... Most of my neighbours know that!

extraduder_ire 6y ago
As an example of metadata revealing a lot about you: Ireland got a postcode system in 2015 (the last time they considered implementing postcodes to improve autosorting, they were so late to the party that "an post" (Irish postal service) had OCR machines good enough to just read the whole address) which assigns each residence in the country a 7-digit alphanumerical code. Called an "Eircode" [1] It is purported to be a solution to packages getting lost or delayed, and an unambiguous way of giving someone a building's address. An Eircode can be resolved into a full postal address, and GPS co-ordinates for the address. e.g, here's some Eircodes; Facebook's headquarters: D02 Y098 President's house: D08 E1W3 Data protection commission: D02 RD28 To get the info for any of these, check out: https://finder.eircode.ie/ https://finder.eircode.ie/ Personal note: I'm not too jazzed on the specifics of the implementation, but it sure is handy when you're shitfaced and can trivially explain exactly where you live to a food-delivery driver over the phone. [1]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Postal_addresses_in_the_Republic_of_Ireland#Eircode https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Postal_addresses_in_the_Republ...