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by jessaustin 3208 days ago
In 2008, the Federal Trade Commission created the Red Flags Rule, which required businesses and organizations to collect personally identifying information from their customers, even if not necessary for service. This put Social Security numbers into the hands of utility companies, telecom providers, doctors and countless other unreliable custodians.

This is the first I've heard of this, and it's a different characterization than what one finds on e.g. Wikipedia (excepting the last section of that page). Still, I believe TFA. It's remarkable how often the impetus to "do something" leads to precisely the wrong thing being done.
2 comments
pseudalopex 3207 days ago
A couple of people who handled Red Flags compliance for medical practices have told me they're only required to do some kind of identity verification, which can be as simple as checking a driver's license. They store SSNs to make it easier to report and collect on delinquent accounts.
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MicroBerto 3207 days ago
Wikipedia contains a lot of political disinformation / "selective" content and should not be used when looking for legal explanation.
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jessaustin 3207 days ago
Yes we know. Often it has links to authoritative/reliable/substantive sources. I was particularly interested in seeing those for the last section [0] I referenced above, because it's the one that actually agrees with TFA, but at this time that section is effectively unsourced. So even though this idea about the red flags rule comports with my prejudice about how regulation typically works, I am currently unable to confirm it. Can you point to a meatier consideration of whether this rule purportedly intended to decrease identity theft actually had this particular effect of increasing identity theft? One thing that makes me suspicious of this idea is that I can clearly remember giving a false social security number to the phone company when I moved in 2004, which was before 2008 when TFA claims the rule started and 2011 when wikipedia claims the rule started.

[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Red_Flags_Rule#Red_Flag_Rule_a...

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