Birthday privacy options

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There should be a Birthday Privacy option to display AGE ONLY.

Some people do put in their fake birthdays to display their age. But I don't understand why people are so paranoid when they give it out. I don't see how you can be traced by it by regular people like me. It's beyond me.

A little paranoia regarding one's personal identity on the web is practical. People sometimes give away not only enough information that allow fraudsters to find out who they are but to perform identity theft or worse. I read of one case where a persons identity was taken and fraudsters managed to sell her house (in America) while she was on holiday! She came back from holiday to find herself homeless and not even able to legally claim the house back because all the legal processes had been completed regarding the sale. While this is an extreme example there are lots of smaller examples. Not everyone who visits WP is an Aspie/Autie as the periodic outbreaks of Nigerian scam PM's show. Some people make a lucrative living scanning online forums where personal details can be collated. While most people on WP aren't as careless with their personal details as those who use facebook, there are still some exceptions. Those who are vulnerable are easy pickings for fraudsters.

But how can they get your personal information over a birth date like your full name, your home address, your social security number? Give me a break. I am talking about here of course.

Depends what other information people let slip. As I said there are people who make a living trawling social forums collating data, not just manually but using bots to scavenge data automatically, thousands of posts an hour in forums like this. (I've authored some internet bots myself for various none-illegal data gathering tasks so know what I'm talking about).

The scammers do this not just from one site but from many, putting the bits of information from here and there together into huge databases to sell on to other scammers. Buying and selling personal data for various purposes (legal and illegal) is big business nowadays.

I used to work for a multinational company that did this legally for targeted advertising and marketing purposes. You would be horrified how much these companies know about the average person including their address, phone numbers, income, names and ages of all their family members, where their children go to school where the parents work, where they shop, what car they drive and its registration number, what insurance policies they have, social security numbers etc. I often had access to such records and the means to steal hundreds of thousands of such personal records. I never did because I'm not a criminal; but there are people with access to this sort of information who are less than honest. A CD or memory stick could be worth a few thousand dollars/pounds on the black market. To organised criminals such information is worth millions in fraud.

The average kid on facebook or other social network sites is oblivious to the dangers they face from disclosing too much information. People sometimes say the are too poor or don't have anything worth stealing so aren't bothered about personal data security, but they too can be targeted. The first they are likely to know about it is when bailiffs coming through the door taking everything they own because they haven't made a repayment on the big loan that they took out (or rather that a scammer took out in their name).

It is all getting very organised nowadays. Information gathered from forums, information hacked from government agencies and other sources, corrupt employees selling a CD or memory stick with thousands of records. Scammers using phishing techniques based on information people have leaked to gain access to your computer or gain your confidence over the telephone to disclose more sensitive information. I could go on but I won't.

Speaking as someone with an MBA in Economic Crime & Fraud Management .... it's actually really easy to find out a lot of information with just a little. I did the majority of my graduate papers on identity and medical identity theft. I really want to get into a career where I can help people who have been victims of these crimes.

So, better safe than sorry, when sharing PID - personally identifying information.

It takes a bot, on average, six months to find out your exact birth date, given your age. I.e. it just waits until it sees the age click over, and that's your birthday.

Much better is to give your birth date as a date fairly near the real one - say within a week or so.

I agree. I don't want it to show my date of birth, but I'd like my age to be shown with my posts and on my profile.

See above.

A decent workaround I guess, but I don't agree with the bot point myself, simply because I doubt a bot would bother with that when there are other members showing their DOB anyway.

I'm a privacy freak too. I just give a fictional date of birth and address.

They can't get any information about you from just your birthday. You are right on that.

But some people post other identifying information. If not in their profile, in posts. The idea is that the birthdate could be used in combination with other information.

I don't know if the concern people have about sharing their birthdate is valid caution, paranoia, or maybe something in-between. But it's plausible, at least, that, combined with other information posted, the birthdate could help identify someone.