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Comment by krishanath | Hacker News Reader

Sure, but we need new laws on how public information can be used. Just because you want to register to vote shouldn't mean your date of birth can now be made freely available to identity thieves and potential employers who can use the info to discriminate against you.

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>Just because you want to register to vote shouldn't mean your date of birth can now be made freely available to identity thieves and potential employers who can use the info to discriminate against you.

Yes it does - that's exactly what "public" information is.

Maybe you can argue that some information shouldn't be public, but some things can't be hidden, like your date of birth or your name or your DNA, and those things are up for grabs by anyone who can collect them, for better or worse.

Again, the government should not collect citizen's personal information and make it "public" information. Even when certain information is known about a private citizen, there should be laws governing what is allowed use of that information and what isn't. Certain uses should require a release from that citizen.

But that information was public, more often than not, before the government collected it.

Newspapers even published birth announcements. Dunno if this is opt in or opt out

There's two schools of thought here - that the day you were born is somehow confidential or that the public has a vested interest in knowing who is on the voter roll.

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