Showing Date of Birth by default

[McBanj0]

Not sure why this site shows date of birth and age by default. Seems rather intrusive and privacy breaching. I would expect that personal details like that should be limited unless shared, not shown by default - given it's a common security question to prevent identity theft.

 

[KleinesSinchen]

Not sure why this site shows date of birth and age by default. Seems rather intrusive and privacy breaching. I would expect that personal details like that should be limited unless shared, not shown by default - given it's a common security question to prevent identity theft.

Privacy by default makes sense. Granted, a date of birth isn't particularly unique, but iIf something isn't needed, then don't share it. Why even type the correct date? I used some random numbers in that field when signing up.

People are used to use their real personal details everywhere, but I don't – if this isn't needed for a site (and personal details are of no use in a gaming forum).

I'm all for defaults set to private whenever possible.

 

[duwen]

It's also not verified, so just because it shows a DoB it doesn't mean that it's a users true DoB.

 

[McBanj0]

I think this point hits it home. It's truly not needed as personal information to operate a gaming forum, so why request it? If the whole of GBAtemp gets hacked, now you have all this personal information leaked.

 

[KleinesSinchen]

I think this point hits it home. It's truly not needed as personal information to operate a gaming forum, so why request it? If the whole of GBAtemp gets hacked, now you have all this personal information leaked.

The amount of information asked here is relatively low.
No real name. No address. No payment data. No phone number. I'd be more worried about Amazon or Google getting hacked. That would be a gold mine for personal data.

Data "collected"(?)

• E-mail address → Use one for each site you sign up to mitigate problems
• Date of Birth → Just enter random numbers
• Country → Not very personal, but select randomly if this is a concern
  • Mentioning actual country can be good for help requests: Anybody can help searching if a product can be delivered to your home country and knows which language to use in addition(!) if somebody isn't very good at English

Rest of the data fields are optional

 

[Skelletonike]

There's nothing wrong with it showing the age by default. It won't kill you. Also, it's not really intrusive and if someone seriously puts their birthday as their security question.... Those people have bigger issues.

A lot of forums used to display the ages of the members, a lot of them still do, it's optional so you can easily remove, lie, or leave it as it is.

I haven't been very active in the past years so I'm unsure if they still keep doing this, but we used to do birthday posts (around 10 years or so) for well known members.

 

[linuxares]

On the internet, everyone is born 01/01/1900

 

[lwiz]

On the internet, everyone is born 01/01/1900

01/01/1970

 

[linuxares]

01/01/1970

Ah right... I forgot about that x3

 

[mrdude]

Showing DOB is good for profiling groomers - when some old codger is contacting some young teenager or pre teen, the warning flags are raised and we can keep track of them.

 

[JuanMena]