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by dylan604 87 days ago
> a social security card literally says it is not for identification

It no longer says this, and has not for a long long time. My parent's cards did, but mine does not. Also, I'm old (for this forum at least), so this isn't a recent change.

1 comments

> It no longer says this, and has not for a long long time.

Don't know about "a long long time" but the feds have been treating Social Security Cards as identification since 1943 (military, some agencies) or 1963 (IRS) (cf [0])

[0] https://www.straightdope.com/21341325/why-does-my-old-social...

I think you're misunderstanding why they are requesting an SSN. You cannot use an SSN to do an in person ID like a photo ID. Same reason a birth certificate cannot be used as an ID. These documents can be used to look up information about you, and a lot of places might use your SSN as a database unique ID, but that kind of info is not identification when someone shouts "papers!" at you.

conflating the two meanings of identification feels deliberate at this point