Lucas Garron
Premium Member
I'm mostly the person responsible for the push to ensure that competitor birthdates are completely private, after several years of inconsistency. The only concrete thing I ever found someone tell me is that birthdates were being collected solely to tell apart competitors with the same names, but clearly we weren't adhering to that.
The issue basically comes down to this:
At the very least, I will always argue against publishing data "in mass", e.g. putting birthdates on WCA profiles. Listing the age as a year isn't much better, because it still reveals some information, and it's possible to find out ages by checking pages every day to see when the age increases.
As a comparison, consider Facebook. Even with their usual disregard for privacy defaults, they help you keep your age private, and generally only show your birth month+day to your friends.
*Unfortunately*, the useful statistics for the WCA are the other way around: comparisons are interesting when you know the age, and the day of the year doesn't tell you much.
Now, there's no reason this policy couldn't change.
I think the most reasonable approach is to publish ages only when we have the competitor's explicit consent , and with a specific license to use it for e.g. age statistics (rather than a free "the WCA can publish it how they want"). That way, young/old competitors who care about age statistics can be visible on them. We could also ask organizers to contact competitors privately, saying "you would be on this record page, do you give us permission to display your name and age?"
But any decent proposal should address a few things:
- We have birthdates of competitors who may never compete again, who have not given consent for their age may be published, and quite possibly expect it to be private
- This policy either be opt-in, or very clear when a competitor registers.
- It shouldn't be too much of a logistical burden on competitors, organizers, and the WCA website team.
- Unlike sports with age divisions, there's no fundamental *need* for us to have birthdates in order to operate. So we should be clear to competitors about what it means to give their birthdate.
I think the simplest solution *if we had accounts on the WCA website* would be to make his a preference that can be selected during registration, with a specific and positively worded "do you allow us to publish your age for X, Y, and Z?" checkbox.
If people like age statistics, discussion is welcome. However, we need a concrete proposal for any changes. Preferably one that doesn't assume that competitors would like their ages to be published by default (even only some competitors, in statistics).
The issue basically comes down to this:
We have birth data from a lot of countries, where competitors might have various expectations about how data is used.
At the very least, I will always argue against publishing data "in mass", e.g. putting birthdates on WCA profiles. Listing the age as a year isn't much better, because it still reveals some information, and it's possible to find out ages by checking pages every day to see when the age increases.
As a comparison, consider Facebook. Even with their usual disregard for privacy defaults, they help you keep your age private, and generally only show your birth month+day to your friends.
*Unfortunately*, the useful statistics for the WCA are the other way around: comparisons are interesting when you know the age, and the day of the year doesn't tell you much.
Now, there's no reason this policy couldn't change.
I think the most reasonable approach is to publish ages only when we have the competitor's explicit consent , and with a specific license to use it for e.g. age statistics (rather than a free "the WCA can publish it how they want"). That way, young/old competitors who care about age statistics can be visible on them. We could also ask organizers to contact competitors privately, saying "you would be on this record page, do you give us permission to display your name and age?"
But any decent proposal should address a few things:
- We have birthdates of competitors who may never compete again, who have not given consent for their age may be published, and quite possibly expect it to be private
- This policy either be opt-in, or very clear when a competitor registers.
- It shouldn't be too much of a logistical burden on competitors, organizers, and the WCA website team.
- Unlike sports with age divisions, there's no fundamental *need* for us to have birthdates in order to operate. So we should be clear to competitors about what it means to give their birthdate.
I think the simplest solution *if we had accounts on the WCA website* would be to make his a preference that can be selected during registration, with a specific and positively worded "do you allow us to publish your age for X, Y, and Z?" checkbox.
If people like age statistics, discussion is welcome. However, we need a concrete proposal for any changes. Preferably one that doesn't assume that competitors would like their ages to be published by default (even only some competitors, in statistics).
