From: Paul Bradley <paul@fatmans.demon.co.uk>
Date: Mon, 22 Dec 1997 22:26:19 +0800
To: Fabrice Planchon <fabrice@math.princeton.edu>
Subject: Re: The Joys of Being Canadian
In-Reply-To: <19971216232911.50392@math.princeton.edu>
Message-ID: <Pine.LNX.3.91.971218205841.842A-100000@fatmans.demon.co.uk>
MIME-Version: 1.0
Content-Type: text/plain




> On a previous (shorter) stay in the US, I didn't have a SSN. Yet I got a
> DL (with my passport) (this was Missouri). And after a few long
> discussions on the phone on why I didn't have a SSN, I gave up the
> explanations and started giving my french SSN (after all, it was a valid
> answer to the question "what is your social security number"), actually
> a substring. Interestly enough, SSNs in France are not supposed to be
> used for identification or taxes purposes, just for medical purposes
> IIRC. A recent project by the government to link medical databases and
> tax database opened a controversial discussion...

It has not, until very recently, been common to use SSN or driver 
numbers in the UK as ID, I don`t know if they were or were not originally 
intended as ID in this country, I don`t think so, but was met with 
abusive argument and suspicion when I refused to give my SSN a few days 
ago as ID, look like the UK govt. is taking a leaf out of billy-bobs 
book, oh dear...

        Datacomms Technologies data security
       Paul Bradley, Paul@fatmans.demon.co.uk
  Paul@crypto.uk.eu.org, Paul@cryptography.uk.eu.org    
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     "Don`t forget to mount a scratch monkey"