Reply to a Tweet by Eric Eggert

2019-10-03

Replied to:

Periodic reminder that not everyone has a “first name” and a “last name”.

— Eric Eggert 2019-10-03

..and that not all names consist of six or more characters (just ran into this earlier today on bahn.de) #universaldesign

Screenshot of a form asking for mother's maiden name as a "safety question" while requiring to enter at least six characters. — Not all people can use their mother’s maiden name as a “safety question” with bahn.de, as the input field requires an arbitrary minimum length of six characters.

I'm Sebastian, Sociologist and Interaction Designer. This journal is mostly about bringing together social science and design for inclusive, privacy-focused, and sustainable "human-first" digital strategies. I also tend to a "digital garden" with carefully curated resources.

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Discussion:

1 Comments

Ton Zijlstra replied at zylstra.org

2019-10-03 14:27

I treat all ‘security questions’, especially weak ones like ‘your mother’s maiden name’ (which in my case is also a few characters short of your Deutsche Bahn example’s limit) as password fields. So I provide unique answers per website asking for them, which are generated by my password generator, and store them in my password manager. It’s an act of information hygiene, imo. Replied to Reply to a Tweet by Eric Eggert // Sebastian Greger (sebastiangreger.net) “Periodic reminder that not everyone has a ‘first name’ and a ‘last name’” ..and that not all names consist of six or more characters

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