[jaanjalgratas]

Why are you scared of sharing SSN? In Estonia it’s called Personal Code and it doesn’t have any special status, just your unique digital name. We have left these days behind dozen years ago when banks used asking Personal Code as a security measure.

[lazide]

SSN is used by many, many entities as a 'secret security code' essentially. Including (still) many banks, government offices, etc.

It's also used for things like tracking of tax liabilities - so if someone has your SSN, with some minor fudging of other data there have been historic issues like claiming tax overpayments and getting checks from the government.

It's incredibly dumb, but it is what it is (mostly still).

At least most of the big players aren't quite as dumb about it as they used to be.

[rtuulik]

Estionian Personal Code number works just as a unique identifying number. American Social Security Number work both as an unique identifying number AND as a verification of identity. Basically its similar to estonian ID number, but instead of PIN1 and PIN2 you have just the SSN.

[AlwaysRock]

Because its not the same in the good old USA. We use it as an identifier but also as a security device. It's a bad system.

[labster]

SSN is not a Personal Code. It’s just a number. Add or subtract one, and you get the a valid number for the people in your home town who were born nearest to your birthdate. There are no checks and it’s very difficult to change. Some people in the USA would like a better system, but we can’t have it because national IDs and vaccines are tyranny.

[barsonme]

SSNs used as IDs is terrible, but it’s a little glib to say we don’t have national ID cards because they’re “tyranny.” There are very real problems, like discrimination and degradation of privacy: https://www.aclu.org/other/national-identification-cards-why...

[xorcist]

Easier put: You can't both have and not have a unique identifier for everyone.