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Does Your Employer Still Use SSNs?
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?"
My company makes us use our ssn as our email address. Talk about being a number...
My employer, a large bank, doesn't even use SSN's (or, more specifically TIN's - Taxpayer Identification Number) for non-financial information. Our employee ID numbers are unique, distinct, and not based on any formula. Now, that said, any employee that has a corporate credit card or is an officer of the company ("Officer", "Assistant Vice President", "Vice President", "Director", "Managing Director", "Senior Vice President", "Executive Vice President", "Senior Executive Vice President", etc., etc., etc.) does have their credit checked monthly by the company. But, I would assume that any company - not just a bank - would take that precaution with employees with purchasing or signatory authority. That system is based on SSN/TIN at our company - but it makes sense there.
I believe that there is a Federal Regulation that intends to restrict the use of SSN/TIN numbers for identification by (guessing here) 2010. I'm certain there is such a law for banks, but I believe that it extends to any US public company. Anyone have details on this?
One last thing - I know many people who use fake SSN's for non-financial uses. For some time, Richard Nixon's SSN was very popular. Now, don't get me wrong, I'm not endorsing that practice - just sharing that it seems pretty common to me.
"Adventure? Excitement? A Jedi craves not these things."
In the beginning the Social Security Number was issued by the government and is unique to each living citizen. This much still holds true.
But what was lost somewhere via the effects of Capitalism.... was that this number was supposed to be private to the individual assigned it. And, while there are laws protecting a citizens privacy. Companies were granted positions to effectively counter such laws. Only the government, state or law-enforcement officials may "demand" your Social Security Number. Visa can not demand you give it to them. Your landlord can not demand you give it to him. Private schools by law, can not demand you forfeit such information.
But no law is telling Visa or anyone else to accept alternate information for their personal records. As a result, you have to give out your Social Security Number, becuase if you don't, you can't apply for an Apartment, you can't buy a car, you can't have a credit card, you can't open a bank account, you can't get a job..... yeah, we have a choice.
*Some places do accept alternate information such as Drivers License Numbers.*
That SSNs are non-unique. They used to be, but thanks to illegal immigrants, ID theft, and a lot of other problems, SSNs simply aren't unique anymore, and thus are not a good identifier.
SJW: a person who perceives an injustice, and while correcting it, commits a greater injustice.
From the Social Security Administration:
It appalls me how irresponsible this is. I have to write out my social security number down for the desk worker if I lock myself out of my room, to log-in to view my classes and grades, and all the time online to manage my account.
I cannot believe that such a highly accalimed university promotes such reckless actions. SSN's are basically our national ID number, and the fact that I have to throw it around all the time scares me.
...that my employer, a place flat-out driven by SSNs in many aspects of our work, wouldn't think of using them for anything internal that isn't mandated by law. We issue to everyone a 5-character ID that's used for signons and all sorts of IDs. We used to use a contraction of the user name, but even that has been 95% phased out for years.
It's not that difficult to quit using SSNs and it's just good policy. I'm surprised that they are still so commonly used in situations where they might be disclosed to anyone but the person to whom it belongs.
I work for the US Post Office at a REC site. We still use parts of our SSN for identification. I don't really want to elabourate, but anyone who wished to steal SSNs there could easily do so.
We were required to give the last four digits of our SSN to get in the gate. Their verification was someone sitting on the otherside of the gate call box with a list of everyone's SSN. I expressed some concerns to my supervisor at the time because I didn't really trust my coworkers. Stupid bitch ran and told our manager that I was going to refuse to give it. She came back and told me that I could be fired for not following the procedure.
That said, Larry Wise's last four SSN numbers are 2795.
Someone hates these cans.
My employer doesn't, because none of his employees has an SSN.
I'm a high school teacher in Kentucky. Yesterday, every teacher in the state got an email informing us that letters sent to our homes inadvertently displayed our SSN through the address window!!! Anyone could have swiped the numbers just by looking at the envelope. I'm not worried myself (my credit is so bad I hope someone will steal my identity), but just imagine if some unscrupulous postal employee noticed thousands of SSNs in plain view.
Or at least allows you to. All universities and colleges MUST allow you to change your student ID to something other than your SSN if you ask (and are encouraged to not use SSNs anyway, though not required). It's federal law (a law passed about five years ago, I beleive). Ask and you shall receive. If you don't, sue and you shall receive even more.
i live in WI and someone in Milwaukee (with many, many previous addresses) is reporting my SS. I have no idea how or where they are reporting it, but they're in the database with my #. They have never used it for financial things yet, though, so my credit is fine. I reported this to the cops several times but they won't do anything about it because they arent using it for credit related things. This pisses me off to no end.
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.
The problem isn't that people can find out your SSN.
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.
Quattuor res in hoc mundo sanctae sunt: libri, liberi, libertas et liberalitas.
In some countries the SSN-equivalents are public and not excpected to be a secret usable to prove your identity. E g in Sweden the Personal Number of all citizens is public. No organisation would use knowledge of the PN as proof of identity. That is what a photo id form an acreditied organisation is used for. The PN is simply a good key to use.
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.
Right. The problem isn't your employer using your SSN to identify who you are uniquely. The problem is dumbass companies that pretend that knowledge of your SSN proves you are that person.
I've written before that there's actually a free market solution to the problem. What it needs is for some well-funded activists (Gilmore?) to put together a nice big database of SSN info. We know all that info is available to any company that wants it.
Then, public announcements are prominently made in the press (NYT ads, paper mail notifications to every major bank and so on) stating that on 2008-01-01, the entire database will be made public for search purposes on the Internet. On that day, you'll be able to look up and verify anyone's SSN for free. That's the way it should be, after all--it's an identification number, not a password, and anyone can look it up for $20 from one of the many online services. We're just going to change the price.
This means that any organization currently using SSN as a secret identifier basically has to stop doing so, or face massive fraud and consequent liability lawsuits.
GCHQ Quantum Insert installed. If only our tongues were made of glass, how much more careful we would be when we speak