@GossiTheDog Also yes SSNs get recycled. There is a good chance you share a SSN with someone who died before you were born.
@MisuseCase @GossiTheDog what?, that sounds incredibly stupid. Can't they just expend the format to include more numbers?
@ekg @GossiTheDog No. It would require a massive amount of time and resources (and thus political will) that we don’t have.
@MisuseCase @GossiTheDog I mean in Sweden they slapped two extra digits to the front. And now half the institution wants the old 10-digit ssn ( ignoring the two digits in the front ) and the other half the new 12-digit.
@ekg @GossiTheDog Okay well. It sounds like Sweden is also having problems getting off their old SSN-equivalent if so
@MisuseCase @GossiTheDog I mean yeah. But the point is that the institution that did have the problem solved it, while institution that didn't care could continue to use the old system.
It's like the extra four digits at the end of the zip code, most people don't care. Those that do add them.
@MisuseCase @GossiTheDog names changes overtime. Unique identifiers shouldn't code any "useful"-information, but that is a way bigger discussion.
@ekg @GossiTheDog We also have agencies that don’t use the SSN as the primary identifier (by now it’s most of them) but we still have SSNs and they still get recycled. Which isn’t a problem if you don’t use them as the sole identifier but combine them with name and birthdate