Do I Need To Give My Ss Number To Register A New Car In New York State

5 Places Where You Should Never Give Your Social Security Number

How to protect Your Social Security Number

31 March 2013, fourteen:xv

8 min read

March 31, 2013— -- Every fourth dimension you lot become to a new doctor or dentist and they give you a clipboard chock with documents to fill out and sign, notice how they always inquire for your Social Security number? Do you lot dutifully give it up? Did you ever wonder if they really demand it?

I once asked a doctor why he wanted it. His response: "I don't actually know. I guess it'south because we've always asked for it." (In authenticity, most doctors ask in case your insurance doesn't pay the entire invoice and/or to fill out a decease document if you lot die. Offer a next of kin who knows the number instead, and your phone number for billing issues.)

Almost every mean solar day somebody asks for your Social Security Number and, like the M Marshal of a parade throwing rose petals or candy to the crowd, you lot probably give it up without giving it a second thought -- because that's what you've always done.

So, the next time someone asks you for your Social Security number, reflect on this: In December, the Army announced that hackers stole the Social Security numbers of 36,000 visitors to Fort Monmouth in New Jersey, including intelligence officers.

Cyber activists took command of the CIA's website. The private information, including some Social Security numbers, of celebrities and political leaders including FBI Director Robert Mueller and Secretarial assistant of State Hillary Clinton were exposed.

The sensitive information of First Lady Michelle Obama, Vice President Joe Biden and Attorney Full general Eric Holder, recently were posted on a website for the world to see.

Hackers even listened in on a phone call in which the FBI and Scotland Yard were discussing the criminal investigation against those very aforementioned hackers!

And, these incidents are but the crumbs on top of the java cake when you consider that hackers and thieves have improperly accessed more than 600 million consumer files since 2004.

Monty Python had it right

The moral to these horror stories is that if your Social Security number is stored on any computer anywhere, hackers will find a way to access it, or a compromised or disgruntled employee may well walk out the door with it. If your dr., gym, or child's course school claims otherwise, that their security systems tin protect your individual information better than the CIA, FBI and Scotland Thou, to quote Monty Python: "Run away!"

Your identity is your biggest nugget, and your Social Security number is the primal to your personal kingdom. With it an identity thief can wreak havoc, hijacking your quondam credit accounts, establishing new ones, buying cars and houses, committing crimes, even obtaining medical products and services while pretending to exist y'all, endangering not just your credit and your reputation, simply too your life.

Consumers whose Social Security numbers are exposed in a information alienation are five times more probable to become fraud victims than those who aren't, according to the latest identity fraud written report past Javelin Strategy & Enquiry.

Just say no For improve or worse, y'all are the gatekeeper. The person nearly responsible for shielding your Social Security Number is y'all. Therefore, your mission is to limit, as best yous can, the universe of those who proceeds admission to it.

Here's a short list of companies and organizations that take absolutely no business concern requesting your Social Security number:

1. Anyone who calls or sends you an official-looking e-mail, who texts yous a link to any site or designates a number to call where you are asked to ostend your SSN. If they call, check the credit or debit carte du jour that is the subject of the communication, call the customer service number listed on the back, and ask for the security department. If they electronic mail or text, do the same, or get direct to the establishment's website (provided you know who they are). Make certain yous type the correct URL, and make sure that the page where you lot are asked to enter your information is secure. Merely provide personal data if you're the 1 who controls the interaction.

2. Public schools: Your utility bill confirms your address. Your email and phone number give them channels to contact yous in an emergency. Asking for your Social Security number is overkill.

three. Little League, summer campsite and the like: For the same reasons as schoolhouse, a Social Security number should never be required by these groups. If they ask for your kid'southward nascence certificate, show information technology to them, don't get out information technology with them unless they can bear witness they will protect it. And even and then, can you really believe them? If you lot use credit to pay for the activity, the organization may demand your Social Security number. If you pay for information technology upfront or with a straight debit to your depository financial institution business relationship or credit card, they don't. Period.

iv. Supermarkets: A frequent shopper card is neither a loan, nor a bank account. It'southward just a tool grocery stores use to track your purchases, primarily for marketing purposes. Regardless, many supermarket chains request customers' Social Security numbers on their awarding forms. Refuse.

5. Anybody who approaches you on the street, whether it'southward a prison cell phone visitor salesman offering a free T-shirt or someone running a voter registration entrada: Never, ever give your SSN. If yous desire an ill-fitting T-shirt festooned with corporate logos, buy one. If you lot want to register to vote, go to your county board of elections in person.

This is the brusque list. There are plenty of other organizations that should never go your Social Security number, and if yous know one that I've left out, please leave information technology in the comments.

Don't just hand it over

Once you realize how frequently yous are asked for your Social Security number, you lot may be surprised. Information technology happens literally all the time. So, the next time someone does, as they inevitably will, hither's how to handle it:

ane. Take a minute and think. Maybe they enquire for SSNs blindly, considering everyone else does, or considering that's how they've always done it. Maybe they really need it. See if their reason sounds legitimate. (For instance, Credit.com'due south Credit Study Menu does ask for your SSN in club to generate your credit score and credit report summary -- an industry standard -- but the information is fully encrypted with a depository financial institution-level hallmark process.)

ii. Negotiate. There are many different ways to identify you without a Social Security number, including your driver's license or account number. Fight to use those instead.

3 . If you must share your Social Security number, do so, only make sure the people taking information technology down take strong security measures in identify to protect it. That said, yous only accept their balls and frankly, in light of the mistakes people make and the composure level of hackers, who really knows if they can protect it?

Overcoming the addictionIf all this sounds similar a giant pain in the cervix, you're right. Information technology is. In the midst of our busy lives, we shouldn't be the only ones concerned with protecting our most valuable identity asset, but information technology is what information technology is. Until somebody creates a Silver Bullet for identity theft, we are forced to take matters into our own easily.

Don't exist passive; ask the companies and nonprofit groups with which you do business concern how they plan to protect you. Do they password protect and encrypt all the personal data they collect? Do they take strict controls on who has access to computers containing your Social Security number, and do they keep this sensitive information off laptops, tablets and hard drives that are like shooting fish in a barrel to steal or lose?Like the doctor I met, many companies collect Social Security numbers they don't need because they're operating on autopilot. They've ever done information technology, and their colleagues at other companies exercise it, so the practice continues and spreads on the strength of simple, dumb inertia. I believe that we are smarter than that. By demanding that companies do a ameliorate job protecting our personal information, and refusing to manus out our Social Security numbers like processed at a parade, we tin can strength them to go smarter, too. And if they don't call up we're serious most this and the authorities doesn't finally force them off their Social Security number addiction, it is highly likely that the ultimate regulator of the American economical system, class activeness attorneys, will exist knocking on their doors.

Adam Levin is chairman and cofounder of Credit.com and Identity Theft 911. His feel equally former director of the New Bailiwick of jersey Division of Consumer Affairs gives him unique insight into consumer privacy, legislation and financial advocacy. He is a nationally recognized expert on identity theft and credit.