Social Security Numbers Have Morphed Into Identity Theft Vehicles

Originally created to track earnings to determine eligibility for Social Security benefits, Social Security numbers are now “widely used as personal identifiers,” creating a troublesome identity theft problem, Rep. Sam Johnson, R-Texas, said during a mid-May hearing called “Securing Americans’ Identities: The Future of the Social Security Number.”

During the May 17 hearing held by the House Ways and Means Subcommittee on Social Security, which is chaired by Johnson, the Texas congressman stated that the risk of identity theft “goes far beyond” the Social Security card being stolen. “Every medical record at nursing homes, hospitals and doctor offices has a Social Security number written on it. The wholesale amount of Social Security numbers that are available to identity thieves is staggering and completely unnecessary.”

Indeed, Theresa Gruber, assistant deputy commissioner at the Social Security Administration, told the lawmakers during her testimony that the Social Security Card “was never intended, and does not serve, as a personal identification document.”

That being said, “unscrupulous individuals use the SSN to steal identities and obtain false identification documents.”

The Social Security Administration, Gruber said, is “always looking for ways to improve the security and efficiency of our records” and intends to “expand the pool of nine‑digit numbers available for assignment.”

This summer, she continued, the SSA plans to implement “a new assignment methodology called ‘SSN randomization,’” which will “help protect the Social Security number by eliminating any geographic significance in the number, and making it more difficult to reconstruct an SSN using public information.”