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A comment on Ask HN: What are the best websites that the Anglosphere doesn't know about?. Parent comment

Re:Ask HN: What are the best websites that the Anglosphere d... by nemetroid on Monday February 15, 2021 @05:58AM (#26141500)
> full personnummer, which is similar to a social security number in the US

It's similar in the sense that it's a unique number assigned to each person, but the fact that it's publicly available means that it cannot be used as authentication.

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Re:Ask HN: What are the best websites that the Anglosphere d... by ptman on Monday February 15, 2021 @07:12AM (#26141988)
And SSN shouldn't be used as authentication either. It's too easy to steal, too hard to change.

We have a similar issue with Finnish Personal Identity Codes, which are legally public, but there are restrictions related to their processing. Which leads to the common misunderstanding that they're secret, so they're used for authentication. It's a mess.

https://hetueiolesalasana.fi/en.html

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