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In many countries, a Social Security number is a number issued to citizens and other inhabitants for dealing with the Social Security administration and other purposes.
United States of America
A social security number is a nine digit number resembling "123-00-1234" which is issued to an individual by the Social Security Administration of the government of the United States. Formerly people often had no social security number until the age of about 15 or 16, since they were used for tax purposes and those under that age seldom had remunerative employment. In the 1980s, the law was altered so that persons without social security numbers could not be claimed as dependents on tax returns. Since then, parents have often applied for social security numbers for their children as soon as they were born.
Purpose and use
The original purpose of this number was to administer the Social Security program, but it has come to be used also as a "primary key" (a de facto national ID number) for individuals within the United States. This is a major example of functionality creep. Payroll, university student records, credit records, and driver's licenses are frequently indexed by Social Security number and hence disclosure and processing of these numbers is of major concern to privacy advocates. As an additional concern, the SSN is one of the pieces of data needed to apply for a credit card using a stolen identity; this is one reason for the advice to be very careful whom one gives it to.
Structure
The nine-digit Social Security number is divided into three parts.
- The first three digits are the area number. [1] (http://www.ssa.gov/foia/stateweb.html) If the Social Security number was assigned before March 1972 (when Social Security cards were issued by local offices) the area number reflects the State where the Social Security number was applied for. Since March 1972, Social Security numbers have been issued through a central office. For the most part (there are exceptions), the area is determined by where the individual applied for the SSN (before March 1972) or resided at time of application (since March 1972). As the areas assigned to a locality are exhausted, new areas from the pool are assigned. This has caused some states to have noncontiguous groups of Areas.
- The middle two digits are the group number. They have no special geographic or data significance but merely serve to break the number into conveniently sized blocks for orderly issuance.
- The last four digits are serial numbers. They represent a straight numerical sequence of digits from 0001-9999 within the group. This group almost always ends in an odd number.
Valid SSNs
A valid SSN cannot have the first three digits be above 770, nor can it contain any field with all zeroes.
SSNs invalidated by use In advertising
SSNs used in advertising have rendered those numbers invalid. One infamous instance is that of the E. H. Ferree Company in Lockport, New York, which in 1938 decided to promote its product by showing how a Social Security card would fit into its wallets. Over time the number that appeared (078-05-1120 (http://www.ssa.gov/history/ssn/misused.html)) was claimed by over 40,000 people as their own.
Other numbers which have been widely used in advertising include:
002-28-1852, 042-10-3580, 062-36-0749, 078-05-1120, 095-07-3645
128-03-6045, 135-01-6629, 141-18-6941, 165-16-7999, 165-18-7999
165-20-7999, 165-22-7999, 165-24-7999, 189-09-2294, 212-09-7694
212-09-9999, 306-30-2348, 308-12-5070, 468-28-8779, 549-24-1889
In order to prevent misuse, the Social Security Administration (http://www.ssa.gov/) requests that Social Security cards shown in advertisements only use numbers guaranteed to be unused and invalid. These approved numbers are in the range 987-65-4320 through 987-65-4329.
Similar concepts around the world
In Australia, a TFN is a number identifying onself with the Australian Taxation Office.
The British equivalent is a National Insurance number, generally called a NI Number (NINO), although it is generally only used to administer state benefits, and has not gained the ubiquity of its US equivalent. The number is stylized as LL NN NN NN L, for example AA 01 23 44 B.
The Canadian equivalent is the Social Insurance Number or SIN.
The use of a SIN as a "de facto" ID number has not become as widespread in
Canada as the SSN has in the USA. There are only certain specified instances
where a person must provide a SIN (namely for tax or retirement benefit related issues). In non-specified instances, a business is free to ask for a person's SIN, but they cannot deny service on the basis that the person can't or won't provide one.
In Denmark a CPR number is used in dealings with public agencies, from health care to the tax authorities. It is also commonly used as a customer number in banks and insurance companies.
In Finland "Social Security Number" or Personal ID number is used for identifying the citizens in many government and civilian systems. It uses the form DDMMYYCZZZQ, where DDMMYY is the date of birth, C is the century identification sign (+ for the 19th century, - for the 20th and A for the 21st), ZZZ is the personal identification number (even for males, odd for females) and Q is a parity character. For example, 311280-999J.
In France, "Social Security Number" is the usual name for the INSEE number.
In Germany, an ID Card ("Personalausweis") is mandatory for all adult citizens. It bears an unique ID code.
In Malaysia, a 12 digit number similar to "Social Security Number" was call Identification Card or shorten to IC. Prior to 1st January 2004, a separate social security (SOCSO) number was used for social security-related affairs. A smartcard replacement called the MyKad is being introduced. It is issued as soon as the holder reaches the age of 12. The first six numbers of the IC is the date of birth, following YYMMDD. The last number in the 12 digit sequence is an odd number for males, while an even number is given for females.
In Sweden a Personal ID-number (Swedish: personnummer) is used in dealings with public agencies, from health care to the tax authorities. It is also commonly used as a customer number in banks and insurance companies. The number uses ten digits where the first six gives the birth date. The Norwegian equivalent Personal ID-number has eleven digits - the first six gives the birth date, the next three tells which century the person is born, the gender and makes the number unique, and the last two is for validity control.
In former Yugoslavia and subsequent countries, each citizen has Unique Master Citizen Number (Jedinstveni Matični Broj Građana, JMBG).
In Brazil there are two different systems. The first one, the Registro Geral (RG) is a number associated to the official ID card. Oddly, although the ID cards are supposedly national, the RG numbers are assigned by the states and a few other organizations, such as the armed forces. So, not only it's possible for one to have the same RG number as a person from other state (which is usually dealt with by specifying the state which issued the ID card), but it's also possible to (legally) have more than one RG, from different states. The other system, the Cadastro de Pessoas Físicas (CPF) is federal and supposedly unique (barring fraud), but it was created originally only for purposes of taxation (a related system is used for companies). One, the other or both numbers are required for many common tasks in Brazil, such as opening bank accounts or getting a driver's license. Generally speaking, the RG system is more widespread (many poor people, who have no bank accounts, never get around to registering for a CPF), but its practical shortcomings have led to debate about merging both systems into a new one, which would be based around the CPF.
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