[rohmish]

I really don't understand US's use of SSN. You people treat it as a secret while it isn't. Now this is a place while something like SSN would've helped but NYPD still uses the old name+D.O.B. combination for checks. US is basically using a very insecure method of national identity. Maybe US should just go ahead and implement a real National Identity Program now.

[theandrewbailey]

Any move to make an official national identity program in the USA is demonized and shot on sight, no matter if it brings to light the crappy system around SSNs.

A true solution would have to be usable by private industry as well. If it were up to me, it would essentially be x509 (because today, you're trusting the state and the person presenting the SSN), but people lose important shit, even proof of identity, all the time.

[Joeri]

In Belgium we receive a national ID chip card which can be used as a PIN-protected client certificate on websites, including all government sites. Identity theft is pretty much impossible unless someone physically steals your ID.

I never understood the privacy concern that americans have about a national ID card when the government knows all the same things about them, and can abuse it in all the same ways. It's like having all the downsides of a national ID, without the upside of being protected against identity theft.

[stvswn]

My best attempt at explaining, although this particular issue isn't one I feel all that strongly about: It's not that we're against the practical idea of a national ID card, it's that we're against giving the federal government the authority that would be necessary to mandate such a thing. We're willing to live with the inefficiency to keep federalism intact.

[rtkwe]

There's an inbuilt distrust of the federal government built into the constitution itself and there's a constant drumbeat from the Republican side that the federal government is wasteful and out of touch with the needs of the individual states, often for practical purposes of devolving control of funding and policy to the state level where in general they have more control.

And as to why the SSN is the way it is, it's a usage of convenience. Before the SSN there was no unique identifier for every citizen then suddenly to keep track of the new entitlement and assistance programs during the great depression one was created and companies started using it as they wanted because it was the most convenient uuid available. There's a good recent CGP Grey video about the history of SSN and why it's such a silly mess today.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Erp8IAUouus

[Frondo]

The answer is, Americans are often fearful people about irrational things. (I am one, and I get into arguments all the time with friends about their irrational fears of the gubmint, terriss, communiss, you name it.)

Keeping us afraid is good business for a lot of low-rent grift industries, like doomsday preppers, as well as high-level ones, like the military industrial complex.

[Muromec]

That's kind of how it works in Europe - state keeps the records and assigns you a number (citizen Id, tax Id whatever), and you can use x509, possibly from private providers, to prove that it's you.

Obviously that Id can't be kept secret.

In Ukraine we even have an opt out for crazy Russian churchgoers who believe, that having id is literally selling their soul - they just use passport number in their x509 certs.

[ashark]

Unfortunately, US politics are really weird and unlikely to get better without at least a constitutional amendment or two. We're stuck unable (unwilling...) to avoid all kinds of awful things necessary for participation in a modern economy, but able to squash any government-related approaches to mitigate the awfulness. This includes simple stuff like national ID.

We must have something like unique individual IDs, but a significant faction of political actors don't want it, so nothing official exists. Instead we get terrible, insecure, miserable-to-deal-with, ad hoc, de facto national IDs of various kinds. It's the worst of both worlds—no actual extra freedom, lots of pointless inconvenience, expense, risk, and anxiety. If that last list looks like what our health care system produces, too, that's not an accident—this is the kind of situation our government (and their private partners) excel at creating.

[cr0sh]

> You people treat it as a secret while it isn't.

It isn't now. But it used to be meant that way. I'm not sure what or how it started.

But old SSN cards had a line printed on them (on back, IIRC - probably not the best place) which read something like "For Social Security (or maybe IRS?) Use Only - Do Not Divulge".

That line has quietly disappeared (sometime before I was born - my Dad and my Mom's SSN cards had the line, but mine doesn't). Likely because the cat got outta the bag, and they realized it no longer mattered.

I imagine that it probably started with some company or other government agency deciding to use it without authorization of the SSN/IRS - and people went along with it because "it's the government, we can trust them", or some such malarky. Furthermore, most people probably never read the back of their card to find out that they weren't supposed to give that number out to just anyone, and of course no one thought of the potential implications to which that number could be applied.

This of course applies to any form of ID using a unique identifier: Bad actors in the system can easily exploit it - and when you are identified by a number, that number (and everything attached to it) is you - regardless of whether it really is or isn't.

Of course - all of this and more was covered in the book "Database Nation" - which was widely ignored.

[catbird]

I think the line you're referring to actually read "For social security and tax purposes - not for identification." As it was explained to me, it meant that the card itself was not a proof of identity, as opposed to something like a drivers license that had a picture and other identifying info.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Identity_documents_in_the_Unit...

[Nomentatus]

In many countries it was originally illegal to ask for an SSN(equivalent) as identification; the line suggests that was originally true in the U.S. as well.

[mjevans]

We really really should...

For the best education on this insanity that I can reference:

Social Security Cards Explained - CGP Grey

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Erp8IAUouus

[pmarreck]

All the religious nuts would be screaming about "The Mark of the Beast" as soon as any such idea is floated.