[OpenID-Specs-eKYC-IDA] Issue #1173: Exposing timezone in timestamps - privacy concern? (openid/ekyc-ida)

Mischa Salle msalle at nikhef.nl
Fri Feb 21 13:41:39 UTC 2020


Hi all,

On Fri, Feb 21, 2020 at 09:14:44AM +0200, Ivan Kanakarakis via Openid-specs-ekyc-ida wrote:
> Hello everyone,
> 
> 
> On Wed, 19 Feb 2020 at 11:35, Vladimir Dzhuvinov via
> Openid-specs-ekyc-ida <openid-specs-ekyc-ida at lists.openid.net> wrote:
> >
> > New issue 1173: Exposing timezone in timestamps - privacy concern?
> > https://bitbucket.org/openid/ekyc-ida/issues/1173/exposing-timezone-in-timestamps-privacy
> >
> > Vladimir Dzhuvinov:
> >
> > To file the comment I made the other day in the F2F meeting.
> >
> > Our concern was that TZ info in timestamps may give away additional information about the user that’s not really required for the purpose of timestamps.
> >
> > Torsten made the comment - about about passports, ID cards and similar proofs which presumably are issued in jurisdiction specific calender time. There I don’t find an issue with having a TZ.
> >
> > I.e. for some types of data a TZ may be useful, for others not really necessary. The task would be to determine where or to spell out a general rule.
> >
> 
> For all dates that are processed by systems, the general rule is to
> always use UTC.
> Displaying a date with a timezone is a presentational concern; the
> underlying data should be in a canonical form, and that is UTC.
> 
> With this is mind, as a general rule I would prefer to have everything
> in UTC (ie, no timezone information, but assuming everything has been
> converted to UTC).
> No information is lost, privacy is preserved, and calculations based
> on that date are possible and simple.

I fully agree with that.
It's also more reliable as Timezones sometimes even change, while UTC
will not.

    Cheers,
    Mischa

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