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Finding a former Australian prime minister’s passport number on Instagram (2020) - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=34966909 - Feb 2023 (41 comments)
When you browse Instagram and find Tony Abbott's passport number - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=24488224 - Sept 2020 (340 comments)
Edit: The blog post also mentions this:
https://mango.pdf.zone/finding-former-australian-prime-minis...
- https://www.myid.gov.au/verifying-your-id-in-myid#myid-Austr...
- https://www.afp.gov.au/sites/default/files/PDF/NPC-100PointC...
- https://www.equifax.com.au/personal/identity-verification-10...
The blog post has more use case examples:
https://mango.pdf.zone/finding-former-australian-prime-minis...
A passport is a primary document (equivalent to a birth certificate) and gives you 60-70 points. It can't be used alone, but in conjunction with another id (forged or stolen) would allow for identify theft.
Closest might be a Medicare Card which gives you access to free/discounted public health that can be used as part of identification. Usually children are on their parents card.
Drivers licence is also a primary identifier, and students can use their school student id.
It always reminds me a lot of here in the US: Incredible land, a vast ecology, great history and subcultures, and some truly amazing people unfortunately drowned out by a staggeringly large population of loud morons who seem hellbent on voting in the worst possible people to run the whole thing, people who often couldn't care less about the things that make their country truly great, while leaning heavily on populism and deception as a means to retain power.
I wouldn't be surprised if the US eventually requires ID for phone numbers, either, the way things have been going.
I will trust his lawyers are right _for Australia only_ (although I have my doubts, and would love to see their reasoning), but in the UK this feels like a clear breach of the Computer Misuse Act[0], and I can't recommend enough that you don't do this.
Why do we treat passport numbers as passwords instead of a login?
Bilal_io•4h ago