Our drivers licenses in Britain incorporate the date of birth in the number.

They take the form AAAAA ymmddy ZZ#ZZ.

The first part is the first five letters of your last name. Next is your DoB, with the year split as shown. (Really subtle, eh? I bet they thought nobody would notice that! [Linked Image] ). I believe that they add 50 to the month if the license belongs to a female.

The last part is your initials followed by another digit and two letters, which I assume are check digits of some sort.

Social security numbers don't seem to have any obvious coding in them, although there's probably some complex government system used. They take the form AA ## ## ## A (where A is any letter, # is any number).

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Being a number simplifies some things: For example my bank account is simply my number.
But what happens if you want to open a second account? [Linked Image]

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On the other hand, you sort of feel like an inmate...
Just look at how widely places demand an SSN in the U.S. these days. It's going that way here, too. Last time I opened a new bank account I couldn't believe how much information they wanted from me.

Mike,
Has New Zealand started using postal codes yet? [Linked Image]

[Edited for typo in SSN format]

[This message has been edited by pauluk (edited 04-05-2003).]