One Way to Stop Exposing SSNs
By Allan Holmes | Friday, January 11, 2008 | 05:45 PM
By Allan Holmes | Friday, January 11, 2008 | 05:45 PM
A Wisconsin government agency, like some companies, federal agencies and other organizations, has decided that the way to avoid accidentally exposing Social Security Numbers is to, well, not use them at all to identify citizens. The state's Department of Health and Family Services, which administers the state's Medicaid program, said this week that it would randomly generate ID numbers for the state's 800,000 Medicaid recipients instead of using their Social Security Number. The announcement immediately follows an incident in which EDS, which holds the contract to process the state's Medicaid claims, accidentally printed and mailed the Social Security Numbers of Wisconsin Medicaid recipients on newsletters. Another Wisconsin agency made a similar mistake last year.
Universities, companies and the state of California -- a leader in passing laws to protect personal information -- have issued rules and guidelines to limit the use of Social Security Numbers. The Office of Management and Budget has weighed in as well.
Ironically, Wisconsin was a pioneer in protecting privacy. In 1993, the state established the position of privacy advocate, whose job it was to make sure the state was following policies and procedures that protected Wisconsinites' private information. But just two years later, Wisconsin Gov. Tommy Thompson (R) (who served as secretary of the Department of Health and Human Services from 2001-2004) eliminated the privacy office in his 1995-1997 budget. Now the state's ability to protect privacy has eroded so much, that Carole Doeppers, Wisconsin's only privacy advocate, told the The Capital Times that the state government has no manageable way to protect data. "We've totally lost control of how government collects and uses and reuses and shares and disseminates information. We've just lost all control of that."
Comments
I hope the USAF, nay the military, pulls their heads out of the "sand" and takes this to heart, also. As a veteran I have been in this ID mess since the late 1960s. It was so bad that if you didn't want to use the SSN (or as the USAF said SSAN) you could be refused service at the base hospital, etc.
When Social Security was established, two things were said:
1 - It is not the ONLY retirement, and
2 - The SSN was not for identification purposes, it is an account number!
Cheers!!
Someone finally have some common sense in this country. Other countries does not use SSN's to identify its citizens and their systems are run very well. The Federal Government is very laxed in protecting the citizens where ID fraud is concerned because of every Tom Dick and Harry forcing people to give them their Social Security numbers whenever they apply for services from that entity. Social Security numbers are issued by Social Security Administration, yet when there is ID fraud the person is sent to the FTC and the credit bureaus to try and rectify the matter.
Mari'a | Tuesday, January 15, 2008 | 11:24 AMWhen will Medicaid in other states such as MD begin this practice. So often the elderly are harmed by such practices where their financial and personal information is exposed by data being exposed. They are often preyed upon because of their lack of knowledge that freely handing their medicaid card to a support worker, aid etc., opens the individual up to having access to their financial data through the use of the SSN# access.
Anonymous | Tuesday, January 15, 2008 | 07:15 AMDuh!
Social Security Administration, a government agency who processes, assigns, and approves the SS-5 (SSN Numbers and Cards) applications should also assign a second ID number to prevent and deter ID theft, terrorism.
All agencies, federal, state, private should stop the use of SSN numbers as identification.
Every person who comes into the US and applies for Residency or US citizenship, eventually make a stop at Social Security for an assigned Social Security.
It's about time somebody pulled their head out of the sand a started the process of using a random generator instead of SSANs for identifying customers/accounts.
It's been nearly 8 years since the idea was kicked around by the Congress.
Without a universal ID number, like the SSN, how do they verify that the person in their system is the same as the person in someone else's system?
Dana | Monday, January 14, 2008 | 09:05 AMBrilliant! Why couldn't the federal government think of that? A number is just, well, a number..
ChristmasTree | Saturday, January 12, 2008 | 09:24 AMABOUT THIS BLOG
Allan Holmes on what's happening and what's being discussed in the world of federal information technology.
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