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In the United States, a Social Security number (or SSN) is a number issued to citizens, permanent residents, and temporary (working) residents under section 205(c)(2) of the Social Security Act, codified as . The number is issued to an individual by the Social Security Administration, an agency of the federal government. Ostensibly, its primary purpose is tracking working individuals for taxation purposes and to track Social Security benefits. However, in recent years, the SSN has become a de facto national identification number, even though it is not supposed to be used as a form of identification.
Contrary to popular belief, there is still no law directly requiring a natural born US Citizen to apply for a Social Security number to live or work in the United States. Although a handful of people still live this way, it is becoming ever increasingly difficult to engage in normal acts of commerce or banking activities without providing one. Such prohibitions against persons that refuse to enter into what amounts to a voluntary government program, raises a variety of constitutional concerns.
History
The first SSNs were issued by the Social Security Administration in November 1936 as part of the New Deal Social Security program. By the end of 1937, over 37 million numbers had been issued.
Before 1986, people often did not have a Social Security number until the age of about 14, since they were used for tax purposes and those under that age seldom had remunerative employment. In 1986, American taxation law was altered so that individuals over 5 years old without Social Security numbers could not be claimed as dependents on tax returns. Since then, parents have often applied for Social Security numbers for their children as soon as they were born. (Note: The law does not absolutely preclude claiming dependants without a Social Security number, however as an issue of policy the IRS often denies such claims unless the issue is pressed.)
Purpose and use
The original purpose of this number was to administer the Social Security program, but it has come to be used also as a "primary key" (a de facto national ID number) for individuals within the United States. This is a major example of functionality creep. Payroll, university student records, credit records, and driver's licenses are sometimes indexed by Social Security number. The U.S. military has used the Social Security number as an identification number for all service members since 1969. As a result, disclosure and processing of these numbers is of major concern to many citizens and privacy advocates.
Since the Social Security Number also doubles as national ID number, some people unfamiliar with the US system may mistake the word "security" in the name to mean "national security". It is far from the truth. The word "security" in "Social Security" refers to the financial security of retired persons.
Federal taxpayer identification number
The Internal Revenue Code provides that "social security account number issued to an individual for purposes of section 205(c)(2)(A) of the Social Security Act shall, except as shall otherwise be specified under regulations of the Secretary [of the Treasury or his delegate, be used as the identifying number for such individual for purposes of this title." See .
Identity Theft
The SSN is frequently used by those involved in identity theft, since it is interconnected with so many other forms of identification, and because people asking for it treat it as an authenticator — it is generally required by financial institutions to set up bank accounts, credit cards, and obtain loans, partially because it is assumed that no one except the person to whom it was issued will have it. Ironically enough, Social Security cards used to have the caption "Not for identification," indicating that the cards and their number are not intended to be a form of identification. In 2005 break-ins into administrative and school computers led to large-scale identity theft, and a bill has been proposed which would make use of the social security number as identifiers in schools illegal. Exacerbating the problem is the fact that the United States has no national ID document and that the social security card contains no biometric identifiers of any sort, making it essentially impossible to tell whether a person using a certain SSN is truly the person to whom it was issued without relying on some other means of documentation (which may itself have been falsely procured through use of the fraudulent SSN). Congress has finally proposed new federal laws that will restrict the use of SSNs for identification and ban their use for a number of commercial purposes, e.g. rental applications*.
Structure
- Information from (from http://www.ssa.gov/history/ssn/geocard.html)
The Social Security number is a nine-digit number in the format "111-11-1111." The number is divided into three parts.
- The Area Number is assigned by the geographical region. Prior to 1947, cards were issued in local Social Security offices around the country and the Area Number represented the State in which the card was issued. This did not necessarily have to be the State where the applicant lived, since a person could apply for their card in any Social Security office. Since 1972, when SSA began assigning SSNs and issuing cards centrally from Baltimore, the area number assigned has been based on the ZIP code in the mailing address provided on the application for the original Social Security card. The applicant's mailing address does not have to be the same as their place of residence. Thus, the Area Number does not necessarily represent the State of residence of the applicant, either prior to 1972 or since.
Generally, numbers were assigned beginning in the northeast and moving westward. So people on the east coast have the lowest numbers and those on the west coast have the highest numbers. As the areas assigned to a locality are exhausted, new areas from the pool are assigned, so some states have noncontiguous groups of numbers.
- The middle two digits are the group number. They have no special geographic or data significance but merely serve to break the number into conveniently sized blocks for orderly issuance.
- There is a theory that the two middle digits can be used to identify a person's ethnic background. This is debunked as an urban legend on snopes.com. An explanation of the group number can also be found at the Social Security Administration's website.
The group numbers range from 01 to 99. However, they are not assigned in consecutive order. For administrative reasons, group numbers are issued in the following order:
- ODD numbers from 01 through 09
- EVEN numbers from 10 through 98
- EVEN numbers from 02 through 08
- ODD numbers from 11 through 99
As an example, group number 98 will be issued before 11.
- The last four digits are serial numbers. They represent a straight numerical sequence of digits from 0001-9999 within the group.
Valid SSNs
Currently, a valid SSN cannot have the first three digits (the area number) above 772, the highest area number which the Social Security Administration has allocated.
There are also special numbers which will never be allocated:
- Numbers with all zeros in a digit group (000-xx-xxxx, xxx-00-xxxx, xxx-xx-0000).
- Numbers of the form 666-xx-xxxx, probably due to the potential controversy (see Number of the Beast). Though the omission of this area number is not acknowledged by the SSA, it remains unassigned.
- Numbers from 987-65-4320 to 987-65-4329 are reserved for advertising use.
Finally, the Administration publishes the highest group number used for each area number. Since these are allocated in a regular (if unusual) pattern, it may be possible to identify an invalid SSN by accidental inclusion of an invalid group number. Despite these measures, fraudulent non-existent SSNs are possible, because of the lack of a check digit.
SSNs invalidated by use in advertising
SSNs used in advertising have rendered those numbers invalid. One famous instance of this occurred in 1938 when the E. H. Ferree Company in Lockport, New York decided to promote its product by showing how a Social Security card would fit into its wallets. A sample card, used for display purposes, was placed in each wallet, which was sold by Woolworth and other department stores across the country. The wallet manufacturer's vice president thought it would be clever to use the actual SSN of his secretary, Hilda Whitcher.
Even though the card was printed in red (the real card is printed in blue), was half the size of the real card, and had "Specimen" printed across the front, many people used the SSN. Over time the number that appeared (078-05-1120) was claimed by over 40,000 people as their own. The SSA initiated an advertising campaign stating that it was incorrect to use the number. (Hilda Whitcher was issued a new SSN.) However, the number was found to be in use by 12 individuals as late as 1977.
See also
External links
- Social Security Administration
- Frequently Asked Questions on SSNs and Privacy
- The Woolworth Card - The SSN 078-05-1120 has been claimed by thousands of people since the late 1930s
- Social Security Cards Issued by Woolworth - "The story of the most misused number of all time"
National identification numbers | Social Security (United States) | Universal Identifiers
"Social Security number (United States)"