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Admin
Canadian law stipulates that nobody can make you hand over your SIN if you don't want to, except the government, and an employer.
Admin
My girlfriend's sisters are twins, born on January 1st. Doubly screwed, I suppose.
captcha: doom. Doom on them ever moving to Canada, evidently.
Admin
Without one specific aspect of a life, anyway.
Admin
Crap, I have triplets born on Jan 1.
Their name are True, False, and File Not Found.
I can't get them insured anywhere!
Admin
Still on hold. I think they have one agent answering the phone for the entire province.
Admin
Ah, no. He just have 9 wives.
Captcha: pirates - yes, only pirates have that many wives.
Admin
Your SIN should only be given to:
And NOBODY ELSE. Other people will ask for it, but only those two people are entitled to ask for it. (If I remember correctly.) You college shouldn't get it. Your credit card companies shouldn't get it.
But this isn't the point. What the system should do is have a 32-bit number as the primary key for their client database. When you start up a new client file, they get an automatically generated number. That number is by definition unique. The rest of the data - birthdate, name, gender, conditions, are supplementary data. If you want to get a report of some kind that looks at other fields, then you could query the database. (I know this, and all I know about DB work I learned from TDWTF)
By the time they end up with more than 4 billion people using their system, the system will be completely archaic.
Admin
I'm suspicious. It seems that husband and wife who share the same last name who happened to be born in the same month would be just as (if not more) common than twins.
Admin
Someone needs to teach these coders about the birds and the bees.
Admin
Woo! The phone rang. Then the voice came on and said "Wait times can exceed 10 minutes"
Did I just jump from the moron queue to the idiot queue?
Admin
And the hold music has changed from "Nutcracker Suite" to light jazz.
Admin
"It turns out that a new version of their software was installed that tracked each person's budget based on their last name, plan number, and month/year of birth. Hence, having two people born in the same month and year on one plan would cause all claims to be booked against one of the two's budget, risking a premature budget exhaustion. "
Admin
This is why I'm planning to name my kids {9FCAF0A2-ACA0-11DB-8059-D4BD55D89593} and {443aa11b-7973-45f0-ac4a-8e0f1e0169ec}
captcha: craaazy
Admin
So yes a recent update. No, the operator wasn't an idiot, she understood the problem. No, historical data did not get hosed during import.
The problem is not that the system wouldn't inherently allow these kinds of duplicates, but rather that the system would apply all claims for each to only one, cause a "premature budget exhaustion." The operator really was trying to be helpful. All the old data that went in with these kinds of duplicates are just waiting for the budget to run out.
Admin
Firstly, it it is actually not unique (and that has caused problems) and secondly there are laws against requiring it for identification (often ignored) for most things.
Rich
Admin
Woo Hoo! Humanity.
Cert was issued in December. Returned by courier. Will re-issue.
Admin
I might be wrong, but I'd wager this issue was caused by some purist dba who believes every database table key must be 'meaningful', (consisting of multiple real-world data attributes), rather than 'non-meaningful', (like a single self-generating integral attribute).
Admin
If your development had as many errors as your writing, I wouldn't be surprised. I chose to only highlight the most obvious mistakes and leave the numerous other grammatical ones alone.
Admin
What time of day? Or doesn't that count?
Admin
The problem with this system is much more complicated than we realize.
Reading it carefully, you could put twins in the system, and they will show up as different people and records, so there is a more stringent key used internally to separate these.
The problem comes from the fact that this key is normally not used by the users. You enter the persons last name, month and year of birth and expect to get a single record. This search perhaps returns only one, it should return a list showing first names and other info to narrow this list.
Secondly, when a claim gets sent you maybe get only the plan number which is the same for all members on that plan and the last name, month and year of birth. Since claim processing is first done by an automated process it links on the first match.
How to solve all these layers of issues is a huge challenge in an old process.
Just goes to show, you can read this and find so many more WTF's you never thought of and explains some of the experiences of people here when dealing with any insurance company.
Admin
Actually not, SSNs are reused...
Admin
To quote South Park, "blame Canada."
Admin
Um. Why a MONTH apart instead of a day?
I can't wait til they claim fraud or deny benefits in a few years when a claim is made and the birthdates don't match.
Admin
And don't forget to standardize your birth time and your current time to UTC.
Admin
That's always nice, until a foreigner moves to town after their birth. :) How about temporary workers with (or heck, without) permits?
Kevin.
Admin
If you read carefully the only values used are last name, month and year. They only way to make these records look different is to put them a month apart.
Still even if day was added to the mix, it doesn't solve the problem, it only makes it more granular.
Admin
heee. All through grade school, I had these 2 cousins in my class. Seems neither father had talked with the other RE Names. Their wife's gave birth the same day, and they named their daughters after the same person. Yep, same first MIDDLE and last names, and birthdate. Always caused "fun" the first day of school "FN?" "Which one?" "FN, LN?" "Which one?" (slight exasperated tone of voice "FN,MN,LN?" "which one?" (VERY exasperated tone of voice) "The one born on MM/DD!" "Which one?" (sound of teacher banging head on desk)
Admin
Another example of why SSN's in the USA are not unique:
We have all heard about the nice things our health care system does for other nations, we bring in the worse cases, do expensive procedures at no cost to them and let them go back home. Our military medical professionals also do this with foreign nationals that need our treatment.
So the systems use SSN's to track people, but these people have no SSN. What do they use? Since they have no reason to apply for a real one, these system often use the 888 range of SSN's. These numbers are usually considered invalid and that is why they are used. These numbers are unique only within the system they were created in, so when someone gets transferred from a military hospital to a USA based hospital that number travels with them and can collide with another record currently in the system.
This has happened many times before.
Admin
Admin
Yeah, it is, and has been for at least a decade. They changed the rules - you MUST apply for an SSN at birth - in fact, at least in NY, the hospital is required to do it for you!
Admin
Admin
well I think every state issues ID cards for those who do not drive, but that creates a whole other set of problems. At least in MD, I don't know about other states, your drivers license "number" always starts with the first letter of your last name. So when I got married a few years back, my wife got a new license, with a new number. Imagine the problems with telling an instiution that you now have a new ID number. I can only imagine that conversation
captcha = craaazy - yes is is.
Admin
By denying entry into the system, they don't have to pay the bills for expensive multi-births and the subsequent neonatal ICU costs.
Admin
Hm... here in Mexico, we have TWO unique keys issued.
The first one, RFC, is only used for fiscal purposes. The second one, CURP, is a unique ID issued since birth (supposedly), and used by not only government dependencies but schools and such. It is intended to use it for fiscal purposes too, substituting RFC, but we still get slated with both of them.
Oh, and not everyone has it, because CURP was implemented only 9 years ago.
So many DB's used RFC, but a bunch of other newer apps use CURP as a primary key.
Difference with SSN? Well, this one is actually made for ID purposes, so you're guaranteed have a unique one. Specially because of the format:
Say, Jose Sanchez Segura (we use father, mother surnames here) was born in DF (Federal District) on Oct 31, 1980? SASJ801031HDFNGS01
So that thing bundles up both surnames, firstname, DOB, sex, state where you were born, even more stuff from surname/firstname, and a number stuck to the end (to avoid collisions). Still, sometimes these are changed because of some rather humorous combinations:
LOCA790103... (LOCA means "crazy woman") PUTO660303... (PUTO is "male prostitute" or "faggot" depending on context, both uses rude)
Now that's some primary key!!!
Admin
Thank you, facetious. As a certified grammar Nazi myself, I had a very difficult time reading that post.
Admin
In the US you have to have a SSN to do almost anything. Get a job, got to school, etc. It is how the government knows if you are the John Smith it is looking for, other than fingerprints. Especially for Insurance purposes, how could they ever prove that you are the John Smith that has a policy with them. Every John Smith in the country could file a claim with them and they have no way to telling.
I think SSN is a key component in identify theft. You use it to prove who you are and it eliminates a lot of identity theft. You don't withold it so no one copies it. That is like burning your fingerprints off because someone might lift them off a glass bottle and use them. However, now you have no way of proving you are who you really are. You aren't giving your SSN out to a total stranger, you are giving it to a company where its usage can be traced. A criminal can get your unique ID giving to you by a company, just as easily as your SSN.
Admin
Not quite true. Certain organizations (largely financial institutions) need to report to the CRA (Canada Revenue Agency (previously known as the Canadian Customs and Revenue Agency (previously known as Revenue Canada))) - they need to report certain kinds of investment income, confirm RRSP contributions, etc.
Your employer is just one of those organizations, for it needs to report that income, and also submit taxes to the government on your behalf.
Your college may need to, so that it can correctly give you a tuition credit slip for your tax return. Not sure about that though.
Admin
...with a similar contribution immediately above it.
Welcome to the developers from Sun Life... sigh
Admin
I was thinking of what my college used to do - they just used your SIN as your student number.
And then posted it when they posted your grades.
Admin
Kiss my sweet dupa.
Admin
Read more carefully, they were not denying multi-births into the system, they let them in, it's just that all claims would be counted to a single "person" causes a "premature budget deficit." Still saves the agency money if they can deny claims with proof to back up the budget deficit.
The person on the phone was actually trying to be helpful by not letting the so called duplicate happen. She probably got reprimanded by her boss and demoted to duplicate claims processor.
Admin
What about when some insurance security bottom-fee... consultant comes in an runs a set of queries designed to detect false entries?
Two children, born one month apart to the same father and mother will likely get a hit.
Captcha:quake... REPEAT!
Admin
It's easy to understand why an application would challenge (but not reject) a Jan 1 birthday -- that's the easiest and most common day to enter when you don't have a clue what the true birthday really is, so it's frequently bogus. You see it a lot in data sets.
Admin
Yes. And it still astounds me how many places ask for it anyways. I politely tell them they don't get the privilege of knowing my SIN #. I haven't had any grief yet from doing this.
Admin
Admin
SIN is required for only a limited number of transactions -- generally ... but not exclusively ... anything of interest to the Canada Revenue Agency, passport issues and a few others.
Just because you are often asked to supply it, doesn't mean you must always supply it.
Admin
Admin
It's not even twins or triplets that would cause this problem; my brother and his wife have the same birthday!
Admin
She did like it when I told her much of the Internet tracks the time by the number of seconds since her birth day :-)
Admin
Alex anonymises these. It most likely didn't happen at Sun Life Canada. Alex may even have made up the company name not realise it collided with a real one.