back to article Privacy Commissioner warns the ‘John Smiths’ of the world can acquire ‘digital doppelgangers’

Australia’s privacy commissioner has found that government agencies down under didn’t make enough of an effort to protect data describing “digital doppelgangers” – people who share a name and date of birth and whose government records sometimes contain data describing other people. Commissioner Karly Kind on Monday used her …

  1. that one in the corner Silver badge

    I say twin, you say doppelganger

    The more syllables you use to say the same thing, clearly the cleverer you are and the more serious you are about the issues.

    Unless they are trying to say that the way forward, to avoid *accidentally* mixing their data, is to just smoosh them all up: make all the "John Smiths" perfectly the same, proper doppelgangers.

    PS

    Don't these government agencies bother with, you know, simple ways to tell two people with the same name & d.o.b. apart? Even though I'm pretty sure I'm the only Corner in the Village (ovoid architecture, very popular around here) I still get asked "what is the first line of the address?". If that failed, at least I'd be aware of the potential problem (hosting a clan reunion that had gone on just a bit too long) and could nudge the government agent.

  2. Inventor of the Marmite Laser Silver badge

    It doesn't help

    That they're all called Bruce.

    1. KittenHuffer Silver badge

      Re: It doesn't help

      I thought they were all named Doug Kinney!

    2. Fr. Ted Crilly Silver badge

      Re: It doesn't help

      And married to Sheila...

  3. Tim99 Silver badge

    Nah, some of us are called Shiela.

    1. Fruit and Nutcase Silver badge
      Alert

      There's only 1 Kylie Minogue

      if there are any others, they can just go change their names.

      There was a proliferation of "Kylie" in the UK when Neighbours arrived in the '80s - must have give rise to a few duplicate Kylie Smiths by now

      I'm going to go and have lie down for a bit - my head is spinning around after this

      https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=t1DWBKk5xHQ

  4. Persona Silver badge

    Tough Problem

    We had this issue many years ago at work. Two girls with the same full name started work on the same day. All their ids for multiple system were getting mixed up or being flagged as duplicates and generating alerts. I phoned them to establish who had which primary id only to discover they had the same date of birth too! In the end I used their postcodes to disambiguate them.

    1. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      Re: Tough Problem

      I'm curious if they were male colleagues, would you have described them as "two boys"?

      1. rafff

        Re: Tough Problem

        Idiom

        My father had an assistant in his shop who, until the day she retired, was always referred to as "the girl".

        And it is always a "girls' night out", regardless of age, marital status etc.

        1. Fruit and Nutcase Silver badge

          Re: Tough Problem

          (in fiction) there was also Granville the "errand boy" in "Open All Hours"

        2. Ken Hagan Gold badge

          Re: Tough Problem

          An established idiom, yes, but language evolves and you may find that this particular idiom faces Darwinian pressure from some of the aforementioned girls.

          1. Anonymous Coward
            Anonymous Coward

            Re: Tough Problem

            My wife and her mates still go out for girls' nights. They were mostly born in the 50s

      2. that one in the corner Silver badge

        Re: Tough Problem

        If I "send the boys round to have a little chat with you" they aren't going to be in school uniform[1]

        [1] well, there was that one time...

      3. IGotOut Silver badge

        Re: Tough Problem

        "would you have described them as "two boys"?

        Just starting "back in the day" they could of easily be 16 or younger.

        And as pointed out, I asked woman just the past Saturday who she was at the event with, and she said "those girls over there". The youngest was probably 40.

        I've also said "who's the new lad?" on quite a few occasions.

      4. Anonymous Coward
        Anonymous Coward

        Re: Tough Problem

        My aunt was sadly unable to have children but expressed her ned to nurture by becoming deeply involved in scouting. Even right up to her death at the age of 102, she would talk enthusiastically about her "lads" coming to visit - which many did regularly, said "lads" themselves being in their 60s, 70s and 80s.

        Her funeral was quite an event. The celebrant observed that, for someone of her age, he'd normally expect maybe 10 or a dozen mourners. The chapel was intended to hold 80. We filled that up and had plenty more folk standing at the back and into the aisle.

        Lads and lassies.

        It was a superb event

      5. Persona Silver badge

        Re: Tough Problem

        I use the phrase "girls night out" or "boys night out" even when those involved are pensioners, That said, if this instance had involved two boys I would probably have said "two chaps". If it was a girl and a boy that would be tricky, though in that instance, and being some 20+ years ago, it's even less likely for them to have the same name.

    2. Doctor Syntax Silver badge

      Re: Tough Problem

      They weren't twins who'd been given the same name, were they?

      (I have seen that in a baptismal register. It may have been that the family were still following the traditional practice of letting the godparents choose the name.)

  5. mark l 2 Silver badge

    This can be a serious problem if the police and DBS service mess up their criminal records checks. Back in the early 2000s when i worked for the local education authority we had a job applicant who according the DBS check was currently serving a 15 year prison sentence for armed robbery. Which unless the prison system was allowing convicted armed robbers to wander out and take job interviews was clearly not correct.

    I don't know how it was resolved in the end because although we wanted to employ them, we couldn't when they failed the DBS checks even though it was obvious that the criminal record was for a different person. So we left it with the HR dept job to get back on to DBS and get the cluster fsck sorted.

    1. Doctor Syntax Silver badge

      AFAIK the ID checking was farmed out to a credit checking outfit - I can't remember which one - so he may have had other problems arising from that situation.

  6. David Harper 1

    The UK Home Office's e-visa system has the same problem

    As reported back in September by the Open Rights Group and the3million (https://the3million.org.uk/sites/default/files/documents/Loss%20and%20Liability%20-%20Glitching%20immigration%20status%20as%20a%20feature%20of%20the%20British%20border%20after%20Brexit%20-%20Sep2024.pdf) and more recently in the Independent (https://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/home-news/evisa-uk-immigration-status-help-b2678643.html).

    The Home Office's euphemism for this is entanglement. It sounds almost quaint until you remember that it means that your personal data is being shown to a complete stranger, or a complete stranger's personal data is being used to deny you the right to return to your home in the UK.

  7. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    Not my problem

    I know for a fact that my surname - rare but not unknown in the UK - when coupled with my first name is unique in the UK. (Not the world though).

    My son, I know for a fact has a globally unique surname. Something he could sell to SEO snake oil outfits if he so chose.

    1. An_Old_Dog Silver badge
      Joke

      My Son's Name

      ... was one I selected to eliminate such potential problems in his life.

      When he gets older, I'm sure he'll get over thank me for my having named him "{b9cefab9-ea64-446b-a4e0-88fc10e587b3}"!

      1. Gene Cash Silver badge

        Re: My Son's Name

        I don't see a single "drop tables" in there...

  8. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    I know that there are many people who share my name (in its entirety) and some that also share my date of birth. I did the check after Hospital Consultant reports seemed to summarise consultations for completely different symptoms and advice (double-incontinence from what turned out to be Cauda Equina, listed as a slipped disc that had got better). This happened twice (and I had my wife attend as witness the second time), but it turned out the Consultant was just incompetent and not correctly identifying the start and end of consultation on his dictaphone. Despite his reprimand, my medical records have never been corrected (it's too hard to work out which was the correct consultation, and the NHS will not allow an additional consultation to correct the issue!)

    1. KittenHuffer Silver badge
  9. Andy Non Silver badge
    FAIL

    Boots opticians

    I got caught with this a while back at Boots opticians. They found my record on their system with my old address on it. The optician started the eye test based upon my previous prescription with them and I couldn't even read the single big letter at the top of the chart. He checked my details, yes it was my record on the computer with my old address, date of birth, land line number etc. But the medications were wrong as were some other details. He compared my new retina scan with "my" previous retina scan and it was obviously that of a different person. Boots had somehow merged my old record with someone else's record. Not been back to Boots opticians since.

  10. Headley_Grange Silver badge

    Thank goodness this is only an Australian problem otherwise think of the pain it would cause in countries with 2x or even 10x the population.

    1. Doctor Syntax Silver badge

      "this is only an Australian problem"

      You think so?

      1. Ken Hagan Gold badge

        A bit of a "whoosh" moment there, I think!

  11. 42656e4d203239 Silver badge
    Holmes

    Police....

    In the UK, police computer systems used to be used in such a way that "Full Name + DOB" was assumed to be unique.

    I am pretty sure I recall a discussion, a while ago, on El Reg., about the issues that arise from that particular idiocy in particular how difficult it is to unentangle records once the issue is noticed.

    Icon - cos that's what you need to sort out the mess.

    1. IGotOut Silver badge

      Re: Police....

      My late brother was arrested at his home because he was wanted for jumping bail.

      The fact he had always lived 100 miles away from the real wanted person was irrelevant. We had to PROVE his innocence by pulling out birth certificates and bank statements.

      After their names and DOB matched, so they MUST have the right person.

  12. David Harper 1

    Since we're sharing amusing stories ...

    Around 30 years ago, I worked for a while at a large UK university. The HR department had a reputation for leaving people on the payroll after they had moved elsewhere, so in my last month, several memos were sent to HR to remind them to remove David Harper from the payroll. A few months later, I started getting mail forwarded to me from the university, but for a David Harper in a completely different department. I emailed him to let him know that I had his mail and would send it back at once. He wrote back to tell me that after I left, HR had stopped paying *him* too. The poor guy missed two months' salary before it was sorted out. Not funny for him at the time, obviously!

  13. Terry 6 Silver badge

    UK financial records and credit agencies

    The BBC last week had a story about people who's credit agency records had become intertwined. In one case screwng up the chances of one of them completing on a mortgage.

    1. that one in the corner Silver badge

      Re: UK financial records and credit agencies

      Ah, credit agencies.

      Anyone who just decides one day to gather all your data without your explicit permission at the start and then just use that to feed us adverts and spam: we all bitch and demand they be controlled.

      Someone else decides one day to gather your data etc and uses it to mess with your life and livelihood not only gets away with it but, after admitting what they've done in TV ads, convinces people that this normal, obvious and would you like to install an app and give us even more data we can monetise?

      If either one makes a mistake? Tough. You are now getting spam meant for someone in Italy - oh, and we've upped your lease payment.

  14. Fruit and Nutcase Silver badge
    Pint

    John Smiths

    Not to be mistaken for beers from downunder

    1. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      Re: John Smiths

      I've drunk some of the beers down under and they weren't to be mistaken for beers either.

  15. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    It may be worse than you think…

    It’s very common in Australian state and federal health agencies to use fairly crude data linkage algorithms- one of which is a combination of abbreviated name plus DOB. These are mostly used for analytics or research purposes, but it’s not hard to imagine a well intentioned public servant casually linking operational health data using this ‘link’.

    AFAIK data management maturity remains very low in most state health departments. I remember vividly having conversations with managers in the records linkage department who insisted that it was not possible to automate the process. Ludicrous, I know, as I’ve been building such fully automated systems for 25 years. It took this department 9 months to generate a linked dataset for all patients in a large Aussie state. Even though this was a few years ago, I still know people who tell me little has changed.

    Anonymous Coward because government work may be super frustrating but it does come around frequently…

  16. CorwinX

    Don't they have the equivalent...

    ... of a National Insurance number?

    AFAIK in this country that stays immutable even if you legally change your name.

    I know they don't actually have NI but there should be a unique "citizen number" (primary key in database terms), assigned at birth, for this very reason.

    It's why many (most?) gov depts will ask for this first and then ask you to confirm your name and address.

    1. Ken Hagan Gold badge

      Re: Don't they have the equivalent...

      FWIW, we also have an NHS number, which is assigned at birth rather than in your mid-teens. (Not sure how the system copes with immigrants. Probably chaotically.)

      Do we also have rules against one branch of government using the "number" of another branch, or am I thinking of something else?

    2. The Central Scrutinizer Silver badge

      Re: Don't they have the equivalent...

      No, we don't.

      Former PM Bob Hawke tried to introduce a national ID card once. It was to be called the Australia Card. We told him to bugger off.

      1. The Central Scrutinizer Silver badge

        Re: Don't they have the equivalent...

        Slight correction... we have a Medicare number but it's not required as a general purpose ID

        1. Ken Hagan Gold badge

          Re: Don't they have the equivalent...

          Strewth! Makes it even more mind-boggling that this cock-up occurred in a medical context.

      2. Bebu sa Ware
        Windows

        Re: Don't they have the equivalent...

        Former PM Bob Hawke tried to introduce a national ID card once. It was to be called the Australia Card. We told him to bugger off.

        We told him (myself included) what his lot could do with their Australia Card ... the internal injuries probably haven't yet fully healed after four decades since neither side have attempted anything similar.

        Actually having ones identify spread around multiple documents like a driver's licence, passport, tax file number, Medicare card etc etc is in many ways more secure than having a single universal credential.

        Probably means parents should be casting their nets further when considering baby's name.

        I don't imagine many of Space Karen's offsprings' given names colliding with another child.

        X Æ A-Xii † (originally X Æ A-12) justification for patricide I would have thought

        I suspect Exa Dark Sideræl and Techno Mechanicus might have settled for Cynthia and Timothy. ;)

        † which I would punt on pronouncing Zar-ax-ee-eye but is probably just plain Smith

        1. The Central Scrutinizer Silver badge

          Re: Don't they have the equivalent...

          Yeah it was a shit idea. Someone said it should be called the Hitler card or the Stalin card.

          Welcome to Australia.... papers please!

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