The first 3 digits of a SSN indicate where the child was born. While not as prejudicial an aspect, there are definitely some geographical biases among some groups.

Just a fun fact, this stopped being true as of June 25, 2011: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Social_Security_number#Structu...

But since there probably aren't many two-year-olds applying for jobs nowadays the comment is still relevant.

Not just a fun fact, but also an informative fact.

Thank you for the update and chuckle!

Only for younger people - SSNs have only been assigned at birth since the 1980s. My mother was born in West Virginia but her SSN has a Minnesota prefix, because that's where she lived when she got her first job.

Someone who wasn't born a US citizen would only get assigned an SSN with their green card or work visa, and I'd imagine the prefix would indicate their first place of residence in the US.

So the most you can get from a pre-2011 SSN is that someone lived in some particular state in some particular year, and that information is likely inferable from the resume anyway.

I was born in the early 70's and mine was assigned at birth. In fact, when I was a teenager I ran into someone else born at the same hospital on the same day (at the time we met we were thousands of miles away living in a different city on the other side of the state, so not a high probability event). The first 6 digits of our SSNs were the same.

Children are not automatically assigned a SSN at birth.

Quoting from the Social Security office: "Must my child have a Social Security number? No. Getting a Social Security number for your newborn is voluntary. But, it is a good idea to get a number when your child is born. You can apply for a Social Security number for your baby when you apply for your baby’s birth certificate."

A couple of decades back, the law was changed to require the SSN for any claimed dependents. Most people, of course, want that ~ $4,000 deduction, so hospitals often distribute the birth registration form.

For what it's worth, I was also born in the 1970s, but didn't get my SSN until jr. high, as I recall.

It won't work everywhere; e.g. SSN equivalent in Poland has sex encoded as one of the digits (determined by whether it's even or odd).

If the bias is subconcious, moving to this would still have an effect.

People are remarkably good at picking up on subtle signals that correlate well with their existing biases. Instead of "It seems like a women" they'll subconsciously think "It seems like an even."

It wouldn't be perfect, but most of the effect would be removed.

In general, it could be enforced as a random identifier generated with each electronic application; this just burdens employers with implementing an electronic applications system, which is too high a regulatory burden (and would make dropping off a CV in person impossible/illegal, which is stupid.)

It could be a hash of the persons name, too, but then the public would have to learn what a hash was...

NI number works well in the UK, because it's convenient (and the original suggestion was specifically for the UK.) A similar system could be used anywhere.

"SSN equivalent in Poland has sex encoded"

That gets supplied when sending a resume?

It's not. OP wrote about using SSN-like numbers instead of names, so I wanted to note the fact that those number can, and quite often do, encode additional information.

I guess that would put an end to linking your github account from your resume.

Considering that doing that is an invaluable tool to people lacking "real" work experience, either recently or in general, I think that could end up hurting a lot of people.

There was never any plan to restrict anything else (although if your github URL is your name, like mine, I guess it would defeat the purpose.) The point was that people often put their name (like in the article) in a large font at the top - replacing this with a faceless number just reduces the initial "put the girls and people called 'Singh' in that pile over there" nonsense, at makes people actually read the CVs.

This sounds great. I do wonder though how the batch interviews would go - it is easier to dismiss people for subconscious (or conscious) racism and sexism when they are just a voice or a piece of paper, but I can see a lot of lawsuits coming out of the HR departments in companies with less than angelic hiring practices.

Reducing discrimination seems like a good idea, but reducing everyone to semi-anonymous UIDs seems extremely dehumanizing.