What was the purpose of using your SSNs as ID rather than names? Very interesting I didn’t realize scientists wore uniforms with names/ids across the back like baseball or hockey players.
Names aren't necessarily unique. It's not hard to imagine a large enough organization having multiple John Smiths on staff, for instance.
As personnel management became more sophisticated and formalized, a unique identifier was needed that was guaranteed to refer to one and only one person. And since SSNs already existed and were guaranteed unique, most of them just used those rather than inventing a unique identifier of their own.
As personnel management became more sophisticated and formalized, a unique identifier was needed that was guaranteed to refer to one and only one person. And since SSNs already existed and were guaranteed unique, most of them just used those rather than inventing a unique identifier of their own.