Earlier quoted context omitted.
Facts: There is and has for a long time been a field for full name. There is now also a field for birthdate. You are free to fill out neither or either. Neither have a strong technical reason to be filled. --- Your position: You have no problem with the full name, but do have a problem with the birthdate. You also agree that the field that you have no problem with (full name) is more sensitive than the one you don't…
> Have I summarized the situation correctly? No, I don't care about either. It can be argued the full name is technically useful for the system administrators on a multi-user system, but I digress. They can add whatever field they want as long as it's optional. I do however have a problem with regulating what an OS is required or allowed to do and what it has to collect and expose. Linux wasn't created in the US and…
I think it's a good thing for OS'es to have the capability to comply with laws when it does not impose undue burden on users or developers. This is to avoid there being 40 different forks/patches of a system that would probably be less transparent than having it in the upstream project.
Whether that capability is activated should always be optional. This field is optional.
Regarding this info being exposed to websites is not up to systemd. If for example firefox were to expose this info to websites without my consent I'd support a fork of firefox or stop using firefox.
As long as the info does not leave my computer I feel it is fearmongering to call it mass surveillance.