I once heard the of a statistic that in any group of 40 people, two will share the same birth day in a year (e.g., 18 October) though not the same year.1 Whenever I hear of this occurring I check the size of the group and it’s always under 40. Of course, this may be Confirmation bias as I only check when the event occurs.
More and more of us now have a 1 January 2000 birthday. We use it as the date when an online form requires a birthday for no reason other than to profile us. Age restrictions aside, no store in the world needs my birthdate even if they are going to give me a free birthday lunch every year.2
1 January 2000 has the advantage of being memorable. Should I ever need to provide the date later on as “proof of identity”, I can remember it easily. I could take a different approach and select a different date for every site, but then I’d need to store each in 1Password so that I could refer to it if needed. I think it’s more fun for everyone to skew the marketing statistics to 1 January 2000. This date also works for Americans and their backwards month, day year convention.
There is a serious message here. Do not provide information to third parties unless you have to. If a form absolutely requires it, consider a memorable false date or address. Many of us all live a 1 High Street as well.
Obviously, banking, insurance, govt depts, car rentals, etc. all need accurate information, but most of the time we are asked it’s unnecessary and only for marketing purposes. I was once asked for my birthdate and home address to book online parking. Surely my car’s number plate was enough to identify me through the gate. Needless to say I aborted the booking.
Happy birthday.