I use my real name as my email (as many of us do). And my phone number is publicly listed in many phonebooks. In Sweden it's standard practice for everyone to have their address and phone number searchable unless you opt out. Basically what used to be in the phone books in the 80s (which was everyone) just moved online in the 90s so now everyone's adress and phone number is publicly searchable. This can be really useful, but of course it can be used for evil as well.
But one of the really positive things about having so much "public PII" (SSNs, Addresses, phone numbers, birth days) is that people don't have to treat this information as some sort of secret. Everyone needs proper ID and eID because knowing someones digits doesn't make it any easier to impersonate them.
If someone wants my phone number, they take my email which has first- and last name, go to any of the N search sites and they find 100 people sharing my first and last name. If they know a city and approximate age (Which they can easily get from a social platform) they can narrow it down to just a couple of people. Public records then shows my birthdays, my cars, my income, who's also registered on the address, and so on. It's not difficult doing OSINT in Sweden...
But one of the really positive things about having so much "public PII" (SSNs, Addresses, phone numbers, birth days) is that people don't have to treat this information as some sort of secret. Everyone needs proper ID and eID because knowing someones digits doesn't make it any easier to impersonate them.
If someone wants my phone number, they take my email which has first- and last name, go to any of the N search sites and they find 100 people sharing my first and last name. If they know a city and approximate age (Which they can easily get from a social platform) they can narrow it down to just a couple of people. Public records then shows my birthdays, my cars, my income, who's also registered on the address, and so on. It's not difficult doing OSINT in Sweden...