The devil is in the number

Sunday, July 6, 2008 | 2:05 a.m.

Either you should carry your Social Security number with you, or you shouldn’t. But don’t look to the federal government to say which of these options is correct.

Roughly 44 million Medicare insurance cards have been issued by the government, and each bears the beneficiary’s Social Security number. Each card also bears this instruction: “Carry your card with you when you are away from home.”

Yet the Federal Trade Commission advises people against carrying around their Social Security number, as it could lead to identity theft. The number should be protected, it says. The Social Security Administration offers the same advice.

But then again, the Internal Revenue Service asks people who are making payments through the regular mail, not always the most secure way to transact business, to jot down their Social Security numbers on their checks.

Additionally, as reported by the Associated Press, the identification cards issued by the Defense Department to active duty and Reserve forces and their dependents, and to military retirees, all have the recipients’ Social Security numbers emblazoned on them.

We believe most everyone, by now, knows the risk involved if their Social Security number falls into the wrong hands. The number alone can allow a thief to obtain someone else’s credit report, which the AP reported is an important step toward impersonating someone. Along with other information — name, birth date, address — a Social Security number enables the opening of fraudulent credit accounts, creating financial havoc for the victim.

The federal government should be consistent in its advice on Social Security numbers, and its advice and practices should err on the side of extreme caution. While the Defense Department is on track to be using a different system for ID cards by 2014 (Why does everything the government does have to take so long?), the IRS and Medicare have no such plans.

The day has long since passed when Social Security numbers can be used for identification and filing purposes without creating serious risk. This is a sad reality that the government should recognize and act upon.