This Is Completely Misleading

      A Social Security press release:

The Social Security Administration (SSA) today announced substantial progress in its ongoing effort to strengthen the accuracy and integrity of the Social Security Number (SSN) database. This work represents the most comprehensive SSN record clean‑up in the agency’s 91-year history.

“The Social Security Number database is our country’s books and records. The database’s accuracy is essential to maintaining integrity of government services for citizens. Accurate SSN records prevent fraud across federal programs and support the proper administration of benefits,” said Commissioner Frank J. Bisignano. “This is the first time SSA has undertaken an effort of this scale, and I am proud of the work we have done to strengthen the foundation of identity data relied upon throughout government and the economy.”

Since the beginning of the Trump Administration, SSA has corrected nearly 15 percent of all active SSNs across approximately 330 million U.S. citizens and nearly 390 million total records. SSA records are referenced by agencies across the federal government and in states to validate identities and prevent improper payments of taxpayer dollars. These improvements demonstrate a government‑wide commitment to safeguarding identity data, preventing fraud, and preserving proper program administration.

As part of this effort:

• SSA has added 17 million dates of death to records that previously lacked this information, using a combination of internal SSA systems and Department of State data.
• Through data received from the Department of Homeland Security’s Systematic Alien Verification for Entitlements (SAVE) service, SSA has updated approximately 25 million records that previously had missing citizenship information.
• SSA is currently in the process of correcting an additional 8.5 million records with inaccurate citizenship status.
• The agency has implemented stronger internal controls to prevent inaccuracies due to manual data entry from occurring in the future.

These improvements reflect the first time SSA has undertaken a record‑integrity initiative of this magnitude and marks a significant step toward strengthening the SSN system for the American public.

     All that has been corrected is the relatively insignificant Numident which has little use other than to look up Social Security numbers. It’s so unimportant that the agency has never made much effort to get it 100% accurate. Correcting it is a waste of scarce resources. But it makes it look as if they’re preventing fraud and looking like they’re doing something positive is all they’re after.

OIG Report On Numident Data Exchanges

      Social Security’s Office of Inspector General (OIG) has issued a report on data exchange agreements affecting its Numident system. It reveals that the agency already has more than 3,400 data exchange agreements and expects to increase that number by 10% a year despite the fact that the agency already has a backlog of 1.3 billion data exchanges that haven’t been processed. OIG “recommended SSA establish processes for components to collaborate on matching criteria and enhance criteria to increase verified matches where appropriate. SSA agreed to implement our recommendations.”

     Others with more knowledge of Numident can correct me but I think Numident isn’t even all that important. It’s not used for benefit payment purposes. It’s highly unlikely that any significant numbers of ineligible benefits recipients will be discovered no matter how many data matches you process. This sounds like a report designed to appeal to President Trump’s obsession with undocumented aliens. I wonder how many of the data exchanges already underway are cost effective. The number of data exchanges already underway troubles me. There’s too many opportunities for errors that will cause unnecessary problems for people who have done nothing wrong. These databases, like Social Security’s and everyone else’s, contain errors but how important are they if the data isn’t being used for benefit payment purposes?