Social Security Numbers Must Go?
From
Tech Crunch:
Eyeing more secure alternatives to Social Security numbers, lawmakers in
the U.S. are looking abroad. Today [November 8], the Senate Commerce Committee
questioned former Yahoo CEO Marissa Mayer,
Verizon chief privacy officer Karen Zacharia and both the current and
former CEOs of Equifax on how to protect consumers against major data
breaches. The consensus was that Social Security numbers have got to go. ...
“Some combination of digital multi-factor authentication… is the
right path,” former Equifax CEO Richard Smith said when asked about such
a program.
Multiple times throughout the hearing, Brazil’s Infraestrutura de
Chaves Públicas system of citizen IDs through digital certificates came
up as a potential model for the U.S. as it moves forward. In this model,
a certificate lasts for three years at maximum and can be used to issue
a digital signature much like written signatures are used now. Unlike
its counterpart in the U.S., these identity accounts can be revoked and
reissued easily through an established national protocol. ...
Last month, White House cybersecurity coordinator Rob Joyce made it clear that the Trump administration is also interested in abandoning Social Security numbers in favor of a more secure, more digital form of identification, stating that the form of ID has “outlived its usefulness.”
4 comments:
Ahhhh the National IDENTITY number. Doesn't this happen just before the chip implants in most dystopian stories? What makes the government sure they can secure the information. Weren't the federal employees (current and former) hacked? Big Brother could make you disappear very easily off the grid and make it nearly impossible to get your identity back. If you thought SSA accidentally making someone dead is a problem wait for this show!
Social Security numbers going back to being used for what they were originally designed--keeping track of wages. SSNs are off some notices now and will be off Medicare cards in the near future.
Social Security Numbers are fine for what they were designed to do - keeping track of workers' earnings. The problem is that they are being used to establish identity for obtaining credit. We have the RealID law, which has standards for establishing identity. Why can't that be used? If you want credit, go to a bank, for example, in person and show ID to prove who you are. That would make it more difficult, but what's wrong with that? It doesn't have to be possible to do everything online.
Any ID solution proposed by the Trump administration will be used for vote suppression.
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