In the United States, a social security number is required for tax filing, government benefits, and has essentially become a national id number, although it was initially not intended to be used for that purpose.
Employers must have your social security number in order to submit payroll taxes and have them credited against your total tax liability. Financial institutions must have your social security number for tracking of financial transactions. You can not open a bank account, take out a loan, purchase anything on credit, etc., without a social security number (or a taxpayer id number for non-citizens). You can not get a driver's license without a social security number. The Citigroup financial information lost, or stolen, in transit is a big potential problem in that IF it was stolen, it provides to the thieves everything necessary to open bank accounts, etc. using someone else's name. It can take years and thousands of dollars for one individual to clear up the mess. Identity theft can make it difficult or impossible to do simple things like opening a bank account or taking out a loan. Identify theft can even make it difficult to get a job. As a Software Engineer, I can not excuse the companies who, through neglect or incompetence, or both, let things like this happen when the technology is available to protect these records from unauthorized access. We are not talking about a minor inconvenience here. Identify theft can have catastrophic effects on lives. John P Baker Software Engineer -----Original Message----- From: Ron and Jenny Hawkins [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] Sent: Wednesday, June 08, 2005 20:46 To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Subject: RE: Banks John, Thanks for that. I just checked some articles on this and see that it was names, addresses and Social Security numbers that were lost. Still, I come from a country that doesn't have Social Security numbers for identification, and I live in a country where everyone carries an ID card with a photo on it. Names and addresses I can get from phone books and electoral rolls, so what does a social security number get me? Ron > -----Original Message----- > From: IBM Mainframe Discussion List [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] On > Behalf Of John Baker > Sent: Thursday, 9 June 2005 12:47 AM > To: [email protected] > Subject: Re: Banks > > Ron, > > The issue a not the card number but is rather all of the personal > information (i.e., social security numbers, transaction histories, etc.) > which can be used to establish identity. > > Replacing cards is easy. Repairing damaged credit is another thing all > together. > > John P Baker > Software Engineer > ---------------------------------------------------------------------- For IBM-MAIN subscribe / signoff / archive access instructions, send email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with the message: GET IBM-MAIN INFO Search the archives at http://bama.ua.edu/archives/ibm-main.html
