Opening a bank or brokerage account requires a customer identification number, most likely a Social Security number or Individual Taxpayer Identity Number, according to anti-money-laundering provisions in the Patriot Act, the security law passed after the 2001 terror attacks. An auto insurer might demand the Social to ensure, say, that the credit information for an applicant is really for the driver operating the vehicle. Life insurers want it because it's a good way to find a "lost" policyholder, or find out if the policyholder has died, by consulting the Social Security Master Death File, said Loretta Worters of the Insurance Information Institute. An SSN can also help find beneficiaries, she said.
Still, if in doubt, ask: Why do you need it? How will you use it? Do I really have to give it?
New Medicare cards are going out without the SSN on them, but for those over 65 the number is sitting in their wallet. Medicare has until April 2019 to comply with a 2015 law requiring it to create a Medicare Beneficiary Identifier. An MBI generator will initially assign 150 million new 11-character identifiers made up of numbers and capital letters. Hassle alert: The transition will run from April 1, 2018, through December 31, 2019, the Medicare web site says. Medicare notes that the MBIs "will not contain inappropriate combinations of numbers or strings that may be offensive." Because, of course, that's our big worry.
The Social Security Administration is taking action, too. On June 10, Americans will need to turn on multi-factor authentication on their My Social Security accounts, which have been targeted by thieves setting up accounts using stolen SSNs to collect benefits.
As for Haas's kids, or, more to the point, yours, the American Camp Association says it doesn't require member camps to gather SSNs. But browsing through camp applications online, one finds the camper's Social, or its last four digits, in demand on camp financial aid forms, authorization forms for medical emergencies, and so forth, sometimes accompanied by a promise to destroy the documents at the end of the season.
Will the U.S. ever break its addiction to the Social Security number? The Office of Personnel Management did begin exploring the use of "multiple alternate identifiers for different programs and agencies" in 2015, the GAO report said. The idea was to collect a Social Security number just once, when an employee started working, and then use different identifiers for different programs, like health-care benefits. The work was put on hold for lack of funding.
Some fear we're just going to come up with another unique identifier that can be compromised, said Velasquez, of the Identity Theft Resource Center. But she's hoping something will happen in her lifetime. She's 45.
This article was provided by Bloomberg News.