John P Baker wrote:
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.
In other words dozens of people know my social security number.
These people can collect such information.
Are the people honest ? ALL of them ?
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.
I my country you have to identyfy yourself and *VERIFY* your identity.
That's why we have photo-id's.
AFAIR, when I wanted to enter to IBM building in Chicago (IL) I was
required to show some photo-id.
When you want driving license or credit, do you have to photo-id yourself ?
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.
As a Power Industry Engineer I cannot see what is catastrophic. I would
call it inconvenience, but catastrophic effect on lives ?
English is not my native language, I must go to the dictionary and check
'catastrophic'.
--
Radoslaw Skorupka
Lodz, Poland
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