Does Your Employer Still Use SSNs? 193
An anonymous reader asks: "My company, a fairly large telco, still uses social security numbers for non-financial purposes; mostly for our IT ticketing system. I find it amazing that in these times, with how easy it is to use an SSN to obtain credit, that any company still does this. I've heard talk for almost eight years that the practice is going to be stopped but little progress has been made. How many companies out there still use SSNs so openly? Since it seems that nobody is in a hurry to solve this issue, what can be done to speed the process up?"
Thought it was actually illegal (Score:3, Informative)
From the Social Security Administration [ssa.gov]:
Re:Wow... that's not right... (Score:3, Informative)
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Individual_Taxpayer_
Employer Identification Number (EIN)
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Employer_identificat
1. A surprising number of organizations will never check your SSN's validity
2. Try changing a digit, you might end up with a very similar & still valid SSN (that belongs to someone else)
Re:Point out to your local normalization DBA (Score:3, Informative)
Not yet [ssa.gov], but they will eventually. That or add another digit.
Less than a century until we run out of our billion or so possible SSNs. Expect the next method to just have a new digit thrown in.
Re:Point out to your local normalization DBA (Score:3, Informative)
10^9 = 1 billion possibilities. If the current system has used up 415 million, and SSNs are being added at a rate of 5.5 million a year.... that's around a hundred years to use up the remaining possibilities. I call that more than "a few decades"
and just to show what can happen... (Score:2, Informative)
Re:You think you have it bad? (Score:4, Informative)
How about the law that you shall not be required to give more than the last four digits of your SSN?
No wonder there are "305 lawsuits" per average company per year...
Re:Point out to your local normalization DBA (Score:3, Informative)
Re:You think you have it bad? (Score:4, Informative)
A business can ask for an SSN when you attempt to buy a nine volt battery with exact change. Perfectly legal. You can, of course, refuse such a ridiculous request. Also quite legal. They can then decline to do business with you. Just as legal.
It’s only the government folks that are prohibited by law from demanding SSNs.
Re:SSN (Score:5, Informative)
Completly false. Employers are REQUIRED BY LAW to take your social security number to handle SS deductions. Banks and credit card companies are REQUIRED BY LAW to retain your social security number in order to do financial reporting (so the IRS can check and make sure you aren't spending more than your reported earnings). Gun shops are REQUIRED BY LAW to take your social security number as part of criminal background checks. There are a whole slew of situations where, not only can a company ask you for your SSN, but they are required to take your SSN!
Visa can not demand you give it to them.
Visa IS REQUIRED BY LAW to take your social security number, or a tax ID number if it is a corporation, as part of their financial reporting requirments.
Private schools by law, can not demand you forfeit such information.
Private schools BY LAW ARE REQUIRED to take your SS number if the private school accepts federal government loans or grants for students.
Don't try to obscure the blame that the government bears for your SSN being your ID number. Aside from the fact that they have made legislation making SSN the de-facto ID number (Real ID Act), it was the government that decided that you would have one single number that would follow you for the rest of your life as your unique identity (as opposed to the system they used for passports, where your passport is given a unique ID, but that number will change over the course of your life... your passport is assigned a number, not the person)
i'm a victim (Score:3, Informative)
I have the original SS card in its original envelope from 2 months after I was born.
I had a hard time explaining things to employers when I was a teenager because they'd do checks of some sort and find this other guy's name.... notably Radio Shack and Menards (Like Home Depot) were the main ones causing problems over it.
Comment removed (Score:3, Informative)
Re:SSN (Score:3, Informative)
Not true. There is a field for the SSN on a Form 4473, but it's not required that it be filled in.
Comment removed (Score:3, Informative)
You're looking at it from the wrong direction (Score:3, Informative)
The problem is that banks etc. use knowledge of SSN for authentication. If someone accumulates debt in your name, based only on their knowledge of your SSN and other readily available data (DOB, mother's maiden name) then you should be able to simply disown those debts, sticking the problem back on the people who accepted inadequate ID.
Re:and just to show what can happen... (Score:2, Informative)
Not trying to scare anyone here...but...my wife works in this field (no not stealing identities, helping people resolve issues arising from stolen identities!) and unfortunately it is not just about your credit. If someone gets hold of your SSN together with your name they can 'become you' in many different ways.
One of the scariest things is when your number gets used for reporting income by many people. Even if income tax is withheld on the wages of these imposters guess what happens when you work 20 different $20,000 per year jobs...you end up in the top tax bracket, and of course it looks like you've take the standard deduction 20 times. Guess who the IRS comes after to get all those extra taxes...the actual owner of the SSN of course.
Oh and imagine what happens when someone gets your SSN and other info then applies for a driver's license in your name. Maybe 6 months later you get pulled over for a routine stop and dragged to jail for non-payment of speeding fines or even worse crimes.
Are any of these likely, no...but as with all matters of probability unlikely does not mean never...it does happen to somebody.
And on the topic of companies using SSNs for non-essential situations...someone in that organization needs to look at a few recent laws regarding the correct handling of NPI (non-public information) such as:
SSN equivalent public in some countries (Score:2, Informative)
One may argue that having compatible unique keys in almost all databases enables or at least simplifies abuse by correlating various databases. But as far as identity theft goes, the SSN only enables it if the SSN are expected to be kept secret. AS long as they are public they are no more useful for identity theft than your name.
Re:SSN (Score:3, Informative)
However, not all banks are equal. The credit union at work absolutely refused to give me an account because they said they got fined if they gave accounts to people and didn't take their SSN. Bank of America, on the other hand, told me that was bullshit and had no problem in opening an account for me. All they wanted was a letter from my employer saying that I was indeed employed by them.
As for checks - I never used them except to pay bills. I got a Visa debit card off my bank _straight off the bat_. They didn't want an SSN for that either.