The next Y2K

The US government decided in 2005 to change the beginning and end of daylight savings time. The following changes occurred:

• Previous start: first Sunday of April (1 Apr. 2007)
• New start: second Sunday of March (11 Mar. 2007)
• Previous end: last Sunday of October (28 Oct. 2007)
• New end: first Sunday of November (4 Nov. 2007)

Since the Canadian economy is heavily dependent upon the US economy, our government has also decided to follow suit on these changes. The rationale behind these changes is increased energy savings, due to greater sunlight during the day. I have discussed the rationale behind daylight savings time in a previous post.

These new start dates will catch most people and businesses by surprise. Especially, in the business world, many IT systems may have the incorrect date for three weeks.

This issue is similar to the computer problem encountered during the turn of the century, known as the Y2K bug. People were afraid that computer systems would not process dates correctly after January 1st, 2000. Fortunately, there were only minor issues reported. However, the business world at that time took advantage of the panic of consumers to cash-in. This time, there has not been much awareness made about the daylight savings time change and I expect there will be disruptions to many services. For those people who are responsible for IT systems, I recommend you take your vacation during the week of March 11th ;-).