From: sean@cobra.dra.com
Newsgroups: alt.privacy
Subject: Re: Bill, Hillary, Chelsea, and their SSNs
Date: 22 Jan 93 19:30:04 CST
Distribution: usa
Organization: Data Research Associates, Inc.

In article <jmcging.727636614@digex>, jmcging@access.digex.com (John McGing) writes:
> SSA, during a period of a strongly partisan, pro-business administration
> did verify SSN's for TRW and some other company.  However, it wasn't a
> court case which caused them to stop, it was the outrage at getting
> involved with this in the first place.  It was a decision made by a
> political appointee to do so, and she stopped when held to the fire of
> public opinion.  A later political appointee formally made such matches
> forbidden.

While the Social Security Administration wasn't a party to the case
"United States Department of Justice vs. Reporters Committee for Freedom
of the Press" decided by the Supreme Court March 1989, I think it is
fair to say that former SSA Commissioner Hardy's decision in July, 1989
not to verify SSNs for private institutions was influenced by the court
decision.

  From a January 1990 report of the H&HS Office of the Inspector General:
  >The SSA provides SSN verification services to certain public and
  >private organizations.  The SSA's SSN verification system verifies
  >a SSN, name, and, if provided, date of birth and sex code as shown
  >on the organization's file match these four items in the SSA file.
  >If any of these four data elements do not match the data in the
  >SSA file, the SSN is "Not Verified."  Although SSA compares each
  >data element, privacy requirements prohibit providing information
  >to most outside organizations on the specific data element that
  >is discrepant.  As a result of the Supreme Court Reporters committee
  >decision in March 1989, SSA will provide "yes" or "no" verification
  >only if disclosure is permitted under the Privacy Act.  Under this
  >policy SSA _will not_ verify SSNs for private entities unless
  >their request are related to programs administered by SSA;  some
  >request by government entities may not be honored.  The SSA has
  >discontinued the practice of verify Social Security numbers for
  >private and commercial businesses such as financial institutions
  >and credit bureaus.  The SSA verification service has been in
  >operation for four years.  Requests for this service have increased
  >30 fold from 24 to 720 requests per year.

Oh, by the way, while the Social Security Administration no longer
verifies SSNs for financial institutions, the Internal Revenue Service
now verifies SSNs for banks with tapes of key data provided by the SSA.
Fundamentally things haven't change, but since the SSA only provides
the IRS with abbrevated information (i.e. first six characters of the
last name) a bank may falsely assume more than they should.

Just so both political parties get their punches in, I'd like to
mention the Carter Administration's entry.  Secretary of Health, Education
and Welfare Joseph Califano's computerized matching of a wide range
of government files.  These types of activities aren't unique to one
political party or administration.
--
Sean Donelan, Data Research Associates, Inc, St. Louis, MO
Domain: sean@sdg.dra.com, Voice: (Work) +1 314-432-1100