I’ve written a lot about how the buying and selling of personal information enables a lot of identity theft to occur. This multi-billion dollar industry assures our most personal information is available to ANYONE, who wants to buy it, and stored in a lot of places that might, or might not be very secure.
With all the data breaches that occur, my guess is that it is stored in a lot of not very secure places.
The Consumers Union’s FinancialPrivacyNow.org is running a campaign, where you can write your elected representative and let them know how you feel about this subject:
No more Social Security Numbers on Medicare cards, checks, or on the Internet! The House Ways and Means committee has unanimously passed legislation that would accomplish just this. H.R. 3046 would stop the widespread and unnecessary sale, purchase and displaying of Social Security Numbers by government and businesses that has made consumers more vulnerable to identity theft. Twenty-five House members have already expressed support. Urge your House member to support H.R. 3046 and make sure that industry doesn’t create holes in the bill’s protections.
Link to where you can write your elected representative, here.
Because employers are checking applicants more carefully, many are saying that illegal immigrants will be forced to use real social security numbers to obtain employment. Here is a post, I wrote about that:
Will stricter enforcement cause more illegal immigrants to assume real people's social security numbers?
This might make a growing problem worse. Personal and financial information is already being stolen and sold in a lot of places, including chat rooms on the Internet.
Stopping one of the reasons information is too easy to steal could have a positive impact on what has become a very negative situtation!
1 comment:
I remember being identified by SSN in college. Grades were posted outside the door. Amazing how lax it all seems now.
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