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Identity Theft-What Can Really be Done w/o a SSN?

Posted by Cliff on from the protecting-your-data dept.

TheItalianGuy asks: "Many of us that work in the financial sector are bombarded with daily security threats. One of the biggest these days is Identity Theft. My fellow comrades and I have been really grilling each other on differing scenarios on what could be done with what information. However, it all seems to come back the the Social Security Number. Financial companies have other controls in place (customer service verification checking, account passwords, etc) to ensure identification. But in order to be of any use, a bad guy would really need someone's SSN. Absent of that, other information would be useless. Right? That's what I would like to ask Slashdot folks. What could be realistically done with customer information without a SSN? Account numbers, address, maybe a phone or payment amount. Is that really dangerous to the customer if only those get compromised?"

3 of 533 comments (clear)

  1. Re:Mine is... by Agret · · Score: 0, Redundant

    President Skroob: What's the combination?
    Colonel Sandurz: One, two, three, four, five.
    President Skroob: One, two, three, four, five?
    Colonel Sandurz: Yes.
    President Skroob: That's amazing. I got the same combination on my luggage.
    [Dark Helmet and Sandurz look at each other]

    --
    Have you metaroderated recently?
  2. Re:Considering... by unixbugs · · Score: 0, Redundant
    Mod it up. People need to read this.

    ...we need to extend the Bill of Rights to explicitly state that your personal information is part of your property and should be protected from search or seizure without probable cause.

    --
    You are about to give someone a piece of your mind, something which you can ill afford...
  3. Re:SSN : These Americans... by christophe · · Score: 0, Redundant

    >It's actually never legally allowed to
    >require a social security number; "they"
    >can request it, but not demand it

      In some countries (France, Germany...) it is never asked (even forbidden ?). AFAIK, the only persons having access to my SSN in France are the one who need it (employer, doctors...). I lived 16 months in Germany, I was never asked mine (and I had none in this country).

      And a SSN would be of little use here. We only had fraud cases with illegal immigrants without social security using the ID of a parent - at the expense of the State Social Security and insurance companies.

      Not to say that identity stealing is impossible here, far from that, but not having this unique key seems to make it a bit more difficult... until now, at least.

    --
    Christophe (Don't hesitate to point out my spelling and grammar mistakes, I want to learn - Thanks).