Is the birthday really needed to register an account?
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When creating a new Vivaldi account, the Birthday field is compulsory:
We need this information to prove to authorities that you are older than 16 to comply with the European General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR).
Is the exact date necessary then (currently entering just the year is not enough), or would a checkbox suffice?
Presuming that the birthdate is stored on Vivaldi’s servers, could the Privacy Policy be edited to mention how it’s used?
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@Dantesoft Since Vivaldi doesn't use your data in ANY other way, the only possible purpose would be to positively identify you if you needed help regaining access to your account, no longer had access to your recovery email, and things such as this.
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Vivaldi doesn’t seem inclined to store any other identifying/personal information of its users.
And the privacy policy explicitly mentions “contact information” (so not the birth year) is used “in case of lost passwords, username recovery, account confirmation, or other account-related support work”.
When using Vivaldi services under one’s real name, the birthdate is not really a good secret to use (multi-factor works better for account security, and it’ll surely come sooner rather than later).
When using Vivaldi services pseudonymously, one risks infringing the terms of use:[you agree to] provide true, accurate, current and complete information about yourself as prompted by the sign up process
If you violate any of the above, your account will be suspended or terminated, and you may be exposed to civil and criminal sanctionsI still hope the field will be replaced with an over-16 checkbox.
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@Dantesoft I couldn't agree more. Also, in many parts of the world, birthdays are considered very sensitive personal information. Anybody uncomfortable with disclosing it will not enter their real birthday, and it's not validated, so it makes far more sense to just go with a "I certify that I am 16 years of age or over" checkbox.
I still hope the field will be replaced with an over-16 checkbox.
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