Yeah. And the fix for that has nothing to do with “de-duping” as a database operation either.
The main components would probably be:
- Decide on a new scheme (with more digits)
- Create a mapping from the old scheme to the new scheme. (that’s where existing duplicates would get removed)
- Let people use both during some transition period, after which the old one isn’t valid any more.
- Decide when you’re going to stop issuing old SSNs and only issue new ones to people born after some date.
There’s a lot of complication in each of those steps but none of them are particularly dependant on “de-duped” databases.
DacoTaco@lemmy.world 6 days ago
Just read the format of the us ssn in that wikipedia. That wasnt a smart format to use lol. Only supports 99*999 ( +/- 100k ) people per area code. No wonder numbers are reused.
In some countries its birthday+sequence number encoded with gender+checksum and that has been working since the 80’s.
Before that was a different number, but it wasnt future proof like the us ssn so we migrated away in the 80’s :')
Wispy2891@lemmy.world 6 days ago
In my country the only way that someone has the same number is if someone was born on the same day (±1 century), in the same city and has the same name and family name. Is extremely difficult to have duplicates in that way (exception: immigrants, because the “city code” is the same for the whole foreign country, so it’s not impossible that there are two Ananya Gupta born on the same day in the whole India)
DacoTaco@lemmy.world 6 days ago
Oh ye, our system wouldnt fit india as its limited to 500 births a day ( sequence is 3, digits and depending if its even or uneven describes your gender ). Your system seems fine and beats the us system hands down haha