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Comment by MikeTaylor | Hacker News Reader

Usually the best solution is not to ask for date of birth. I guess about one in ten of websites that ask me that actually have a legitimate reason for needing to know.

(In the present case, a UK Government website might well have a legitimate reason.)

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If you're verifying (air quotes) something like whether someone is 21, I wonder if it would make better sense to ask the year of their birth, then ask the month and day only if they answered with the year where it mattered. You don't need to be that granular most of the time, so why put people through the hassle?

If they really cared, they'd do something more exact than asking for date of birth; it's just a "formality" to comply with some law somewhere.

The point is that they can easily comply while asking for less pii.

21 according to which jurisdiction? Is the USA the only one that counts?

I tried to help my boss once to log onto Zoom for a meeting. The site asked for date of birth, and not wanting to give any PII I naturally entered some bullshit but plausible date.

Well Zoom locked him out for some time for trying to lie I guess and that meeting had to be moved to Teams.

This is interesting. What triggered them to think this was a lie? Had your boss previously entered a different birthdate, which they remembered and then compared to?

I have no idea what they may have gathered before but now that I think back, I did choose the date really quickly so it may be possible it thought I was a bot. I’m not familiar with all the ways that is determined but I think it’s far-fetched but who knows.

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