Comment by Buttons840

Comment by Buttons840 8 hours ago

5 replies

What if people just publicized their own social security number, and then whenever they had to deal with "identity theft", they just pointed out that their SSN is public information and so it was negligent for the company to believe it was them just because of a SSN.

victorbjorklund 4 hours ago

Just for the record, I think it’s a crazy idea to make things like DNA or fingerprints public. But a social security number is different. It’s wild how in the US, if someone gets hold of your number, they can do so many things with it. I’m from Sweden, and here we have a similar number called a personal identification number. The last digits are not secret but still sensitive. You can actually Google and find out almost anyone’s number if you want to, and it’s used for similar purposes. But it wouldn’t be enough to cause serious harm just by knowing someone’s number. Identity theft happens here too, but for a company it’s not much different from someone just having your name. It’s still a pain, but it’s nothing like in the US where your life can basically fall apart if someone gets your social security number.

bdamm 7 hours ago

Most doctor's offices just use my name and birthday to assume authorization to transfer sensitive medical information. I kinda feel like privacy is massive "emperor has no clothes" aspect of society.

  • nkmnz 7 hours ago

    This behaviour is just because their IT system doesn’t allow regular users to search for names, just for birth dates. Then they pick you by name from a list of people with that birthday.