Congress To Restrict Social Security Number Use
diverge_s writes "News.com.com has an article detailing a long overdue attempt Congress is making to restrict the use of Social Security Numbers. From the article: 'In both the House and the Senate, there are at least three pieces of pending legislation that propose different approaches to restricting the use and sale of SSNs. Politicians have expressed astonishment at what they see as a rising identity fraud problem, frequently pointing to a 2003 Federal Trade Commission survey that estimated nearly 10 million consumers are hit by such intrusions each year.'"
Comment removed based on user account deletion
Any competently designed identification system
The SSN was never intended to be an identification system. In fact, its proponents promised up and down that the SSN would never be used for anything but keeping records of individual retirement accounts.
-jcr
The only title of honor that a tyrant can grant is "Enemy of the State."
Public Universities are beginning to change. About 2 years ago, NC State University (my school) switched from using the SSN to a six digit ID number which the Cashier's Office had already been using in their own database.
They issued new ID cards to everyone along with other much needed improvements (your SSN is no longer used as a standard barcode on the front, larger photo, newer magstripe, expiration date, etc.). This made everything much more secure and departments and professors are no longer allowed to have/use your SSN as a primary key.