| From: | Achille Autran aautran@*************.fr |
|---|---|
| Subject: | SSN for other countries |
| Date: | Fri, 10 Mar 2000 11:15:31 +0100 |
> What do other countries have like the USA's Social Security Numbers?
> Or something similar that serves as a universal ID number?
In France everyone is given a Social Security Number at birth, based on
sex, date, place of birth and something like "congratulation you're the
4523th baby born in this city this month". Used to index files for
health care and welfare.
But this may be on-topic: while trying to relate SSN to SR, I remembered
an argument that arose a few years ago. It was about allowing the tax
and police offices (well, police offices ? Bad words...) to use the SSN
for cross-searches in the social welfare databases. Of course, given
french people usual behaviour, it caused loud protests and
demonstrations and stuff like that, if not riots and strikes, and
eventually the project was dismissed.
The point is that, welfare databases are MUCH more accurate than others:
they are those who give money, not the other way around ! :) Hence the
wish for other administrations to access them. What I wondered was: no
doubt such connexions exist in 2060, but a-priori only for government
agencies. What about private police enforcers as Lone-Star or KE ? While
they would be craving for these data, would a goverment grant a megacorp
access to its PLTG (for a large country)? More generally, what are the
relationship between DoJ (or its equivalent) and local police
contractors ? From a quick glance at the LS sourcebook, it seems that LS
is granted quite extensive rights about investigation, arrests and the
like. In particular in financial crime that involve huge amounts of
data-minig, there could be plenty of struggles between, let's say KE
investigators (of Ares nationality), and reluctant tax collectors. If
any inquiry must be conducted as an international affair, we can expect
a major slowdown in justice. Wads of paperworks for sure.
Well, just my 0.02 FF.
Anyway, since frenchies don't seem to be bragging much on this list,
feel free to ask me anything about my "dear" country.
