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Do You Have Your Social Security Number on Your Drivers License?
By JLP | February 7, 2006
According to this article, millions of people have their Social Security Numbers printed on their drivers license! Who was the genius that thought this up? I’m sure identity theives are having a heyday with this one.
Topics: Miscellaneous | 4 Comments »
February 7th, 2006 at 12:50 pm
Most states probably had SSN’s on thier licenses for decades before ID theft was even an issue.
Guess they haven’t gotten around to changing them yet. Bureaucracy moves pretty slowly.
February 7th, 2006 at 1:41 pm
For a long time our company’s health plan used the SS# as the employee number. So there was a card in my wallet with my SS# for a long time. They finally issued new cards with some other number on there for identification purposes. So it’s not just driver’s licenses–you may have it somewhere and not even realize it.
February 7th, 2006 at 1:49 pm
Like Chrees, I used to have a medical insurance card with my SSN on it. I had it in my wallet for a couple of years until new ones were issued. Then when I went to throw away the old one, I noticed the ink from it had bled onto the wallet and permanently marked my SSN into one of the transparent card holders. I actually shredded the card holders. Fortunately they were detachable.
February 7th, 2006 at 4:18 pm
Utah has my SSN on my drivers license, issued in 2001. My health insurance used to have the SSN as the ID number, but changed a year or so ago. I have ended up shredding a stack of old correspondence from them because every sheet has my SSN on it.
What bothers me is my Discover Card statement. It usually runs 4 or 5 pages with all the adverts, convenience checks, fine print, and so on, and they print the card number at the top of every page. It keeps my shredder busy.
Remember when people used to get their SSN printed on their checks right under the address because so many stores would ask for your SSN and write it on the check? How times have changed.