3 ms·
Oh, we know what it is and we also know that it is terrible for identification. Just hand out IDs with an actual unique id number with a check digit to _all_ c
by yreg 11mo ago
Oh, we know what it is and we also know that it is terrible for identification.
Just hand out IDs with an actual unique id number with a check digit to _all_ citizens.
- cinntaile 11mo agoA social security number is unique. I do agree it's better to use a different unique number.
- spacechild1 11mo agoAt least in my country, the SSN is unique and everyone has one.
- TheOtherHobbes 11mo agoA mix of six upper and lower case gets you nearly 20 billion unique IDs, which should be enough for a while. If we colonise the galaxy we could increase that to seven letters.
- walletdrainer 11mo agoHow is it terrible? SSNs rather reliably identify individual people, actual non-fraudulent collisions are very rare. The fraud is a separate issue and SSNs are obviously misused, but that doesn’t mean that it’s not a reasonable system to uniquely identify multiple people with the same name and DOB.
- rvnx 11mo agoThe fact it is tied to social security and is not called “national ID” shows already it is a legacy system, + the fact there is no authentication in place
- walletdrainer 11mo agoAuthentication is completely separate from identification, you shouldn’t be using any kind of ID number to authenticate anyone. That does not suggest that ID numbers are not good for identification.