Restricting use of Social Security numbers a challenge

Congressmen Robert Matsui, D-Calif., and Clay Shaw, R-Fla., have the best intentions in the bill they're sponsoring to make Social Security numbers available to only a few government agencies. They're understandably worried about identification theft by criminals and terrorists. But what they propose, at this late date -- Social Security numbers have been around for 65 years -- hardly seems feasible on one hand, nor adequate on the other.
The Social Security Administration has issued more than 383 million Social Security numbers, with about 6 million new numbers assigned each year. Stopping universities, insurance companies, blood banks, financial institutions and even state driver's license bureaus from using Social Security numbers is like unpopping corn. Once all those little kernels have become big and fluffy, they're never going to fit back on the cob.
At the same time, continuing to permit private companies to buy and sell SSNs, under the guise of obtaining a customer's consent, lets them plow up the cornfield without the farmer's permission.
What it would do: Matsui and Shaw's measure -- which is cosponsored by many of their colleagues -- is the Social Security Number Privacy and Identity Theft Prevention Act of 2001. It puts restrictions on the sale and public display of Social Security account numbers or any derivatives by federal, state and local governments and bankruptcy case trustees. It also prohibits the display of SSNs on government checks issued for payments, or on driver's licenses or motor vehicle registrations issued by a state or local government, and it prohibits access to the SSNs of other individuals by prisoners employed by federal, state or local governments, among other regulations.
Fair enough. But while governmental agencies are forbidden from selling or displaying individual SSNs, there's sufficient wiggle room for the private sector to amass the SSNs of, say, customers, clients or patients. In the bill's language, restriction need not apply "if an individual grants voluntary and affirmative written consent to the sale, purchase, or display" of his or her SSN.
Of course, Americans ought to read the fine print on everything they sign. But we would imagine that in signing up for new phone service, a credit card, car insurance or a hospital admission, for example, most people will either skip the section on permitting access to or the sale of their SSNs, or will consider such access readily offset by the benefit of the service they are gaining or product they are purchasing.
The critical difference it seems to us is whether providing one's SSN responds to the individual's need or a company's wants.
Different standards: An ill person might be happy that his medical records can be quickly found at doctors' offices or hospitals in various locations when he is in a life-threatening situation, but not at all happy to know that his credit card company was making money from the sale of his financial records.
Companies trading in financial information are the largest private-sector users of SSNs. Credit bureaus maintain over 400 million files, with information on almost 90 percent of the American adult population which they sell and trade, virtually without legal limitations.
Trading in SSNs should be against the law. The right to privacy should supercede commercial enterprise.