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I Spoke To The Developer Of The Systemd Birth Date PR - YouTube
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this post was submitted on 25 Mar 2026
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Adding birthday fields is not privacy invading in itself.
Yes, of course. If you ignore current reality, then it's not privacy invading...
No, it literally just can't violate your privacy in any way. You have complete control over what, if anything, is placed in that field. No information about you can be gained or disclosed by virtue of the systemd change alone. You can think it's a bad change because it signals intent to follow a trend of supporting privacy-invading age verification, but you can't say this specific change in itself is privacy-invading.
You'd have complete control for now.
Don't give them an inch.
Systemd is free software. The four essential freedoms necessitate that you have complete control forever.
The only way that you could lose control is if your hardware manufacturer took away the ability for you to install your own operating system. But then the choice isn't going to be Windows or a Linux flavour personally blessed and tivoised by Lennart, it's going to be Windows or a brick.
I don't support the change. That's not my point. My point is that if we're going to argue the dev being threatened isn't a victim because he's actively harming privacy, we should be aware that the changes he proposed are not actually harming privacy at all.
What the hell else is it used for?
It's mostly not going to be used at all.
Then why is it necessary?
Adding a birthday field is not privacy invading in itself the same way brandishing a knife is not assault in itself.
Context matters. I've held knives before and it was completely inocuous. I've used knives to chop vegetables, to spread butter, to carve something out of wood, etc. If I pulled out a knife while in a heated argument with someone that'd be a whole other story, and I don't think "I was just holding the knife, is it illegal to hold knives now?" would exonerate me from accusations of intent or threat to assault someone.
In any other context adding a date of birth field would be inocuous. You're not required to use it after all. But in this context as I understand it, it is explicitly infrastructure for age verification, even if it is not age verification in itself.
If you have to fill them in, it is.
If you have to fill them in, it is.
Thanks for letting us know you've done zero research. You don't have to fill it in just the same as you don't have to fill in the RealName and Email field.
Thanks for letting us know you're an ass.
It's not a software issue that requires research. It's a philosophical question of requiring something purely for authoritarian reasons and this is step one.
You don't, and you don't have to fill them in with accurate information, so it isn't.
You don't, until you do.
Well, It depends on where.