[Cthulhu_]

The fact that it's fixed / can never be changed is a massive problem with social security numbers. That, and the fact it's often used as authentication instead of identification. They're moving away from that slowly, but it's taking a lot of time and effort.

[skeletal88]

The problem with ssn is specific to the US. Other countries have sane ways of authenticating citizens and the personal id number is just used as a global foreign kes for all government or public or bank database where you need to uniquely identify a citizen.