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Online date of birth disclosure.

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88V8
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Online date of birth disclosure.

#408076

Postby 88V8 » April 29th, 2021, 2:55 pm

You may have seen comment about eBay changing their payment terms for sellers, and sellers complaining they're not getting paid.

I occasionally sell on eBay.
Just now had an email from them saying that in future payments will be made direct to my bank a/c instead of via Paypal.
As part of making the change, they want me to update various details, including disclosing my DoB so they can 'verify my identity'.
And this despite being with them since 2007.

We're told not to disclose DoB online, as it's a key item in identity theft. When asked, I usually provide a fiction, but if that results in an identify failure I presume my account could be suspended which as a frequent buyer would be a pain.

So, DAK whether DoB is really sensitive enough to worry about?

V8

dealtn
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Re: Online date of birth disclosure.

#408088

Postby dealtn » April 29th, 2021, 3:34 pm

It's not particularly a concern, but as a form of identification it also pretty useless.

In reality anyone can find that information relatively easily for many people. It sounds like a "box tick" and no real protection at all for the potential problem they are seeking to solve.

How often are we asked things such as DoB, or address, as requirements to "get through security", which provide no protection at all from a potential fraudster who could access such information with relative ease?

csearle
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Re: Online date of birth disclosure.

#408702

Postby csearle » May 2nd, 2021, 9:09 am

As a slight aside, it is a problem of our own making. For some reason we in the UK seem to have an aversion to identity cards. In other countries that do use them this endless farce of supplying and verifying a myriad of semi-private information is simply not needed. (I'm sure there are some good reasons not to have them in the UK but we sure pay a bureaucratic price for it.) C.

Lanark
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Re: Online date of birth disclosure.

#408715

Postby Lanark » May 2nd, 2021, 10:19 am

On stack overflow they think the biggest risk is this being correlated with data from other websites
https://security.stackexchange.com/ques ... th-and-why

So as long as you sign in to ebay with an email address that you dont use for anything else you should be good. This is a good practice anyway, I have had more spam from Ebay sellers than everywhere else on the web put together.

GrahamPlatt
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Re: Online date of birth disclosure.

#408737

Postby GrahamPlatt » May 2nd, 2021, 11:54 am

Who are eBay going to “verify your identity” with? I’d be tempted to continue with the (false) DoB you’ve already provided. If this ends up causing them to cancel your account, then if you still want to use eBay, open a new one.

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Re: Online date of birth disclosure.

#408783

Postby Lootman » May 2nd, 2021, 3:58 pm

ReallyVeryFoolish wrote:
csearle wrote:As a slight aside, it is a problem of our own making. For some reason we in the UK seem to have an aversion to identity cards. In other countries that do use them this endless farce of supplying and verifying a myriad of semi-private information is simply not needed. (I'm sure there are some good reasons not to have them in the UK but we sure pay a bureaucratic price for it.) C.

It's kind of ironic really because a large majority of UK adults have a driving licence with a picture of the person on it. In fact, it's pretty much an ID card to all intent and practical purpose. I don't really see why that same card couldn't be issued to all citizens on the 16th birthday before they have passed a driving test. The card simply endorsed in some way when a driving test is actually passed.

That idea, of a non-driving driving license, is exactly what is done in the US. Almost everyone has a driving license in the US even if they cannot drive, because it is so useful for identification purposes. There is merely an annotation on it to indicate what classes of vehicle, if any, you can drive but otherwise it functions as an ID.

The US social security number is also a universal identifier, much more so than the UK NIN. The SS card itself is rarely used, but the number is constantly required.

csearle
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Re: Online date of birth disclosure.

#408795

Postby csearle » May 2nd, 2021, 5:29 pm

Lootman wrote:The SS card itself is rarely used, but the number is constantly required.
Went out of fashion in Germany. ;) C.

torata
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Re: Online date of birth disclosure.

#409445

Postby torata » May 5th, 2021, 4:41 am

ReallyVeryFoolish wrote:
csearle wrote:As a slight aside, it is a problem of our own making. For some reason we in the UK seem to have an aversion to identity cards. In other countries that do use them this endless farce of supplying and verifying a myriad of semi-private information is simply not needed. (I'm sure there are some good reasons not to have them in the UK but we sure pay a bureaucratic price for it.) C.

It's kind of ironic really because a large majority of UK adults have a driving licence with a picture of the person on it.


(My bold)
Actually, it's not a large majority. As of 2016, 10 million people with driving licences only had the paper ones* and in 2019, 24% of the voter population didn't have passport or photo ID driving licence** in order to prove their identity.
I'm sure these figures will gradually decrease, but I imagine it's still a sizeable minority.
torata

* - https://www.independent.co.uk/voices/voter-id-passport-drivers-license-disenfranchise-poor-a7497801.html
** - https://commonslibrary.parliament.uk/voter-id-key-facts-and-figures/

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Re: Online date of birth disclosure.

#409461

Postby GoSeigen » May 5th, 2021, 8:11 am

csearle wrote:As a slight aside, it is a problem of our own making. For some reason we in the UK seem to have an aversion to identity cards. In other countries that do use them this endless farce of supplying and verifying a myriad of semi-private information is simply not needed. (I'm sure there are some good reasons not to have them in the UK but we sure pay a bureaucratic price for it.) C.


Absolutely 100% wrong. As an individual who has been waiting more than 18 months for issue of my identity card I can assure readers that the system is nothing but an endless pain in the butt. It's a wonderful opportunity for abuse of power for wannabe jobsworths everywhere. Even if you have one you still have to provide personal identifying information to verify that you are the rightful holder of the card.

The UK status quo with its flexibility and common sense approach is far superior IMO.

GS

csearle
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Re: Online date of birth disclosure.

#409470

Postby csearle » May 5th, 2021, 8:37 am

GoSeigen wrote:The UK status quo with its flexibility and common sense approach is far superior IMO.
In my opinion it is not. Common sense has absolutely nothing to do with the absolute farce of supplying different subsets of personal information to almost every organisation with which one deals. It is a complete and utter dog's dinner and is clearly a Godsend to anyone interested in identity theft.

Chris


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