Author Topic: Google account birthday request  (Read 8095 times)

Tim Hall

  • Victoria is my queen
Google account birthday request
« on: 20 April, 2021, 09:40:48 am »
My new! shiny! Android phone , which is signed into my Google account, has just flashed up a Google message:
"Your date of is missing. This info is needed to comply with the law"

Now Google probably know more about me than I do, but the "comply with the law" wording is increadibly shite and vague. A swift [mode=irony] Google [/mode] suggests the account might get zapped if I don't add my dob. I can't find which particular law they're referring to.

Shoulds I just comply or die on this digital hill?
There are two ways you can get exercise out of a bicycle: you can
"overhaul" it, or you can ride it.  (Jerome K Jerome)

Jaded

  • The Codfather
  • Formerly known as Jaded
Re: Google account birthday request
« Reply #1 on: 20 April, 2021, 09:42:55 am »
Do what i do, put your birthday in as 1 Jan on a year close to yours.
It is simpler than it looks.

Re: Google account birthday request
« Reply #2 on: 20 April, 2021, 09:44:44 am »
I use 1 Jan 1900, easy to remember.

rogerzilla

  • When n+1 gets out of hand
Re: Google account birthday request
« Reply #3 on: 20 April, 2021, 09:57:06 am »
Don't put anything too young, or it will.probably block access to email, social media and possibly red hot XXX Audax sites.
Hard work sometimes pays off in the end, but laziness ALWAYS pays off NOW.

citoyen

  • Occasionally rides a bike
Re: Google account birthday request
« Reply #4 on: 20 April, 2021, 10:09:35 am »
Don't put anything too young, or it will.probably block access to email, social media and possibly red hot XXX Audax sites.

Tim "Barely Legal" Hall  ;D
"The future's all yours, you lousy bicycles."

Mr Larrington

  • A bit ov a lyv wyr by slof standirds
  • Custard Wallah
    • Mr Larrington's Automatic Diary
Re: Google account birthday request
« Reply #5 on: 20 April, 2021, 10:24:47 am »
If it really omits the word “birth” from the message I'd say you had bigger problems than upsetting the Chocolate Factory.
External Transparent Wall Inspection Operative & Mayor of Mortagne-au-Perche
Satisfying the Bloodlust of the Masses in Peacetime

Re: Google account birthday request
« Reply #6 on: 20 April, 2021, 02:15:49 pm »
I wonder just how many people in webland have a birthday including the first of the month?    Pretty high proportion I should imagine.

hellymedic

  • Just do it!
Re: Google account birthday request
« Reply #7 on: 20 April, 2021, 07:17:28 pm »
ISTR that includes your good self PB...

Re: Google account birthday request
« Reply #8 on: 20 April, 2021, 07:58:35 pm »
There is no such law requiring them to have your DOB.

Re: Google account birthday request
« Reply #9 on: 20 April, 2021, 08:04:17 pm »
Maybe it's USA/NSA/CIA law.

Re: Google account birthday request
« Reply #10 on: 20 April, 2021, 08:10:26 pm »
Yes, the USA's COPPA act requires companies to have parental consent to collect personal information on children under 13.

ian

Re: Google account birthday request
« Reply #11 on: 20 April, 2021, 08:28:50 pm »
There's also that weird thing with booze sites that makes you put in you DoB to confirm that you're over eighteen.

I figure the kids have that one sorted, though I think licking the screen will be marginally less effective than drinking 24 cans of Top Deck Shandy, something that from experience I don't recommend.

Re: Google account birthday request
« Reply #12 on: 20 April, 2021, 08:51:34 pm »
There's also that weird thing with booze sites that makes you put in you DoB to confirm that you're over eighteen.

I figure the kids have that one sorted, though I think licking the screen will be marginally less effective than drinking 24 cans of Top Deck Shandy, something that from experience I don't recommend.

Whereas our local artisan beer emporium just asks if you are over 18 with two options to click on.  Perhaps the kids around here are a bit thick.

Feanor

  • It's mostly downhill from here.
Re: Google account birthday request
« Reply #13 on: 20 April, 2021, 09:00:06 pm »
Years ago, I got caught out when we got a PS3 for the kids.
In order to play online, I needed to create accounts for them.

If I was honest about their DoB, they needed to be subsidiary accounts to mine.
This just didn't work: The games just didn't work. And I'm not talking about nasty stuff here.
So I created fake accounts for them with aged-up DoBs.
But I had to create new e-mail addresses on my domain for that, because the existing e-mail addresses were tied to the Junior accounts forever, and nothing I could do could jailbreak them.

And now, I can't remember the fake DoBs I used, and can't find where I recorded it, so I'm locked out of those accounts too!
I thought I'd used their actual DoB, but with my Year of Birth substituted.

FFS!

Re: Google account birthday request
« Reply #14 on: 20 April, 2021, 09:06:13 pm »
I also have an Internet birthday that is different from my real birthday. This results in lots of good wishes on 1 January from people who don't know me well enough to spot the discrepancy ;D

It would be unusual for a law to say that a company must know your birthday, especially as birthdays get used in identity theft and are therefore confidential information. Usually, it goes like this:
  • The law says that companies must take reasonable steps to avoid use of certain services by minors
  • The company decides (and may well be right) that asking for date of birth provides reasonable confidence of age
"You must tell us your date of birth" is therefore short-hand for "We are required to get evidence of your age, and that's what we've chosen". Arguments that DoB does not provide very strong evidence (which it doesn't), or that it's an invasion of privacy, will fall on deaf ears. But it remains untrue that the law requires them to ask DoB, because the law establishes a principle of a need to make reasonable checks, and leaves it to individual companies to work out what those should be.

In practice, of course, they might just as well ask "Are you over 18", since that would provide evidence nearly as strong. The only additional evidence provided by asking DoB is that the subject is able to do maths well enough to invent a date that actually is more than 18 years ago.

Strictly, if they tell you that the DoB is for a security check, and then additionally use it for other reasons, such as to target you with age-appropriate products or even send you birthday wishes, that's a breach of GDPR, which requires them to declare the reasons for which they will use the information, and then limit themselves to those.

ian

Re: Google account birthday request
« Reply #15 on: 20 April, 2021, 09:12:56 pm »
There's also that weird thing with booze sites that makes you put in you DoB to confirm that you're over eighteen.

I figure the kids have that one sorted, though I think licking the screen will be marginally less effective than drinking 24 cans of Top Deck Shandy, something that from experience I don't recommend.

Whereas our local artisan beer emporium just asks if you are over 18 with two options to click on.  Perhaps the kids around here are a bit thick.

I think it's a hangover from the US, all the shops there have the if you're born after this date in whatever year, you can buy booze and cigarettes (in those states where there's still a state monopoly of boozohol, I think they're often the law, you buy them from the booze authority).

I figure this means that most Americans do not know how old they are, or that they really have been counting the days till they get their paws on their first legal forty-ouncer. Possibly both.

citoyen

  • Occasionally rides a bike
Re: Google account birthday request
« Reply #16 on: 20 April, 2021, 09:13:26 pm »
In practice, of course, they might just as well ask "Are you over 18", since that would provide evidence nearly as strong. The only additional evidence provided by asking DoB is that the subject is able to do maths well enough to invent a date that actually is more than 18 years ago.

I was doing that to get served in pubs back when the www wasn’t even yet a glint in Sir Tim’s eye.
"The future's all yours, you lousy bicycles."

Re: Google account birthday request
« Reply #17 on: 20 April, 2021, 09:26:15 pm »
I think it's a hangover from the US, all the shops there have the if you're born after this date in whatever year, you can buy booze and cigarettes (in those states where there's still a state monopoly of boozohol, I think they're often the law, you buy them from the booze authority).

Only if they don't suspect that you might drink alcohol in order to get inebriated.

If you seem to be purchasing enough booze to get hammered, they might refuse to sell it to you.
<i>Marmite slave</i>

Cudzoziemiec

  • Ride adventurously and stop for a brew.
Re: Google account birthday request
« Reply #18 on: 20 April, 2021, 09:57:57 pm »
In practice, of course, they might just as well ask "Are you over 18", since that would provide evidence nearly as strong. The only additional evidence provided by asking DoB is that the subject is able to do maths well enough to invent a date that actually is more than 18 years ago.
Not always 18 though. Different minimum ages for different things and different places and occasionally varying by other factors, such as your sex or even your date of birth (see example below).

I think it's a hangover from the US, all the shops there have the if you're born after this date in whatever year, you can buy booze and cigarettes (in those states where there's still a state monopoly of boozohol, I think they're often the law, you buy them from the booze authority).
In a twist on this, NZ is considering a law to make it illegal for anyone born after 2004 to buy tobacco. Ever. "Smoke-free generation". https://www.stuff.co.nz/national/the-detail/300282141/tobacco-ban-for-those-born-after-2004--smokefree-generation-plan
Riding a concrete path through the nebulous and chaotic future.

Cudzoziemiec

  • Ride adventurously and stop for a brew.
Re: Google account birthday request
« Reply #19 on: 20 April, 2021, 10:01:20 pm »
I'm disappointed that no one's suggested changing your Google birthday several times a year so as to get multiple birthday presents.
Riding a concrete path through the nebulous and chaotic future.

Feanor

  • It's mostly downhill from here.
Re: Google account birthday request
« Reply #20 on: 20 April, 2021, 10:46:16 pm »
There's also that weird thing with booze sites that makes you put in you DoB to confirm that you're over eighteen.

I figure the kids have that one sorted, though I think licking the screen will be marginally less effective than drinking 24 cans of Top Deck Shandy, something that from experience I don't recommend.

Whereas our local artisan beer emporium just asks if you are over 18 with two options to click on.  Perhaps the kids around here are a bit thick.

I think it's a hangover from the US, all the shops there have the if you're born after this date in whatever year, you can buy booze and cigarettes (in those states where there's still a state monopoly of boozohol, I think they're often the law, you buy them from the booze authority).

I figure this means that most Americans do not know how old they are, or that they really have been counting the days till they get their paws on their first legal forty-ouncer. Possibly both.

I had this bizarre thing in the local Co-Op a few weeks ago...

Junior ( age:21 ) and I went around the shop and picked up this and that.
At the checkout, I asked for a bottle of gin that was behind the counter.
'I need to see ID for junior', in case you are buying it for him.
We don't have such ID, so can't buy.

Purchase other items, go to car, return to shop myself one minute later, purchase gin from same person, just fine.





arabella

  • عربللا
  • onwendeð wyrda gesceaft weoruld under heofonum
Re: Google account birthday request
« Reply #21 on: 20 April, 2021, 11:17:56 pm »
They're a bit paranoid.
I went to co-op with my mid teens son.  Being a strapping youngster he carried the basket.  Into which I put a 330ml bottle of beer for my own consumption, plus assorted commestibles of the veg/pasta/biscuit/etc variety.
Denied sale as my son had carried the basket.
Apparently looking at/taling about the merits of/anything remotely like that wrt alcohol is verboten.  So you could be really irritating, turn up with your offspring, talk them through the merits or otherwise of assorted beers/ciders/wines/etc and then not buy any.
(last time I looked which was admittedly a long time ago, you were allowed to buy beer (or porter) in pubs for 14yo anyway, so long as said 14yo stayed out of the bar area (where the carpet isn't).  Though that's probably no longer true.)

As regards GPDR etc, I had to fill in a customer form, for an email-type query.  They still wanted address, postcode and phone no, in addition to email address.  So I added to the form that they did not have my permission to use said unnecessary data which I had provided only because the form demanded it.  Someone will doubtless be along shortly to tell me such a statement has no standing.
Any fool can admire a mountain.  It takes real discernment to appreciate the fens.

Mr Larrington

  • A bit ov a lyv wyr by slof standirds
  • Custard Wallah
    • Mr Larrington's Automatic Diary
Re: Google account birthday request
« Reply #22 on: 20 April, 2021, 11:23:46 pm »
USAnia is strange.  My chum Auré, who is about 6’5” long and hav a huge hary beard, got asked for ID when he tried to order a BEER with his dinner.  At the time he was at least 30.  Perhaps it's coz he's French.  I am not quite as tall, nor was I so extravagantly furry, when I got carded for a similar “crime” in New Mexico, though I was only a few months shy of my fortieth.  And the cashier couldn’t understand the d.o.b. field on either a BRITISH passport or driving licence.
External Transparent Wall Inspection Operative & Mayor of Mortagne-au-Perche
Satisfying the Bloodlust of the Masses in Peacetime

Kim

  • Timelord
    • Fediverse
Re: Google account birthday request
« Reply #23 on: 21 April, 2021, 12:12:19 am »
And the cashier couldn’t understand the d.o.b. field on either a BRITISH passport or driving licence.

Ha!  I hadn't considered that problem.

Mind you, after too long communing with the babbage-engines, I've been known to reach a state where I can make a reasonable guess at what a unisex spaceadmin timestamp might mean, but have to pull my BRANES out, blow into the edge connector and shove it back in a couple of times before I understand BRITISH dates.  This is probably what it feels like to be Excel.

FifeingEejit

  • Not Small
Re: Google account birthday request
« Reply #24 on: 21 April, 2021, 12:30:58 am »
I had this bizarre thing in the local Co-Op a few weeks ago...

Junior ( age:21 ) and I went around the shop and picked up this and that.
At the checkout, I asked for a bottle of gin that was behind the counter.
'I need to see ID for junior', in case you are buying it for him.
We don't have such ID, so can't buy.

Purchase other items, go to car, return to shop myself one minute later, purchase gin from same person, just fine.

Presumably it's because they could possibly potentially etc. knowingly be selling the alcohol to be supplied to a bairn due to that bairns presence.

Quote from: Bits of Licensing 2005 (Scotland)
107Unsupervised sale of alcohol by a child or young person
(1)Any responsible person who F8... allows alcohol to be sold, supplied or served by a child or young person on any relevant premises commits an offence.


108Delivery of alcohol by or to a child or young person
(1)This section applies where alcohol is sold on any relevant premises for consumption off the premises.
(2)Any responsible person who allows the alcohol to be delivered by a child or young person commits an offence.
(3)Any responsible person who—
(a)delivers the alcohol, or
(b)allows it to be delivered,to a child or young person commits an offence.