Ignoring for a moment that there is apparently a disturbing lack
of physical security for this type of data and that it is constantly in jeopardy, I
wonder what possible legitimate purpose most of these organizations have for
storing my SSN. Essentially, there are three potential uses for the SSN, outside of
the government??™s use for managing social security and taxation:
Credit history check. Credit agencies use the SSN as the unique identi-
?¬?er to identify individuals. When an organization needs to perform a
credit check, they get the SSN from the individual, and the individual
must give his permission for the credit history check. You could argue
that the agencies shouldn??™t use the SSN for this purpose, but then they??™d
just use another unique identi?¬?er for the same purpose, and that
wouldn??™t change anything. The fault here is that the recipient of the
check nearly always retains the SSN.
Credit reporting. A creditor or service provider needs to report information
back to the CRA and uses the SSN as an identi?¬?er.
Common identi?¬?er. Every other use of the SSN comes down to using it
as a common, cross-industry identi?¬?er. And every use of the SSN in this
fashion just weakens my ability to protect my assets from assault by
thieves intent on stealing my identity.
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