Jason-299789 (11/12/2012)
I didnt know that it was a government standard, but you would have thought they would have bit the bullet and updated thier IT systems 15-20 years ago when the Y2K bug was in full swing. Its not as if its unprecedented in terms of issuing new numbers to people.
Why?
It's an identity number, that's all it is and the DOB is just part of generating said ID. There's no assumption that you can extract the full date of birth from the ID correctly in all cases (though if you're dealing with people currently living you can make a general assumption as to the century implied that will be correct in the vast majority of cases), hence why, as Artoo said, all government forms ask for ID number and date of birth (in the format CCYYMMDD usually).
Converting it would require a lot of work, all government forms (in all 11 languages) and all validations done in every IT system that validates ID numbers in the country. I think we have slightly larger problems down here than that...
Gail Shaw
Microsoft Certified Master: SQL Server, MVP, M.Sc (Comp Sci)
SQL In The Wild: Discussions on DB performance with occasional diversions into recoverability