That’s just systemd adding a birthdate field to their userdb. Doesn’t require that it be filled out or accurate, and especially doesn’t require it to be validated against a government database. I don’t see it as fundamentally any different from adding a userdb field for favorite color, phone number, or blood type.
Without 3rd party validation, I really don’t see the privacy issue with an age field. Without verification, it is, at worst, one more byte available to hash into a unique identifier, but you can feed that field from /dev/random at every query and poison even that hypothetical.
That’s just systemd adding a birthdate field to their userdb. Doesn’t require that it be filled out or accurate, and especially doesn’t require it to be validated against a government database. I don’t see it as fundamentally any different from adding a userdb field for favorite color, phone number, or blood type.
Without 3rd party validation, I really don’t see the privacy issue with an age field. Without verification, it is, at worst, one more byte available to hash into a unique identifier, but you can feed that field from /dev/random at every query and poison even that hypothetical.
You are absolutely right, we are not in fact getting screwed, they are just applying the lube for later. (Shamelessly stolen from elsewhere)
Whoosh.
Plesse don’t give them any ideas. Here’s a list of what’s currently included
https://systemd.io/USER_RECORD/