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Comment by edgesrazor | Hacker News Reader

Believe it or not, it really is. I was given this example by an attorney who specialized in HIPAA law: Say a chain store has a breach and the only thing that was stolen was a customer's name and their flu shot records - that wouldn't be that big of a deal, right? Well, say one of those customers was a fitness guru who built an empire on natural and holistic remedies. This changes the entire context of the breach.

The same thing would work for age. Look at that ridiculous California law they proposed to get IMDb to stop showing actors' and actresses' birthdays. There can always be a claim of age discrimination - especially in finance.

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How on earth would that work? You're going to have to disclose your DOB at some point in the process to landing a job or applying for a loan regardless of any 'age discrimination'.

I'm just saying that just because you're willingly giving your DOB, doesn't mean it's not considered "sensitive information". An employer can use it to determine if you're old enough to work there (Arby's for example), but if it got out, someone could possibly use it against you, so it's considered sensitive.

Why is it required for getting a job?

Because, for instance you have to be over 18 to get a job, because your minimum wage could be indexed to age, because your CV will give most of that away anyway and because various official forms your employer will need to fill in accurately contain a field for 'date of birth'.

You probably can't even open a bank account without specifying your DOB, let alone get a job or a loan.

I know people stick their DOB (and photo!) on their CVs in the Netherlands. As far as I'm aware that would be quite odd to see in the US. There are some differences here in what is comfortably or preemptively shared with employers between the US and the NL.

It's still the usual way of things in Germany. You bet I had a nice professional photo taken. You list not only your birth date, but birthplace and marital/family status.

Job-hunting as a married-but-childless 30 year old woman here is awesome. Not. When I was stupid enough to make the whole "why do we list our family status on our resumes" thing a point of smalltalk towards the end of one of my first interviews here, the guy cheerfully told me, "oh, because we need to pay a family father of 3 more than we need to pay a single guy"

... and the young, childless wife of an engineer working at that small city's most generously-paying employer? The guy did not seem to believe I needed a job at all. All's well that ends well, and I'm now in a far better job that has a relatively transparent union payscale, but it stung at the time.

My husband, a German, has told me that you used to also list the occupations of your parents!

Good grief, that's incredibly off-putting. I've refused to add a photo and DOB to my CV on principle and fortunately it hasn't seemed to hinder my job seeking.

You should see the stuff the gradeschool of my kids asks me about without so much as blushing.

It would be after the hiring decision, but the I-9 requests plenty of information.

https://www.uscis.gov/i-9

That's pretty much de facto standard in Sweden too! Seems to be very common in Europe in general.

Identity verification, background checks, etc.

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