AP News, June 21st, 2007
Identity thieves continue to have access to Social Security numbers on public documents despite federal efforts to protect that information, according to a congressional report.
The Government Accountability Office said the problem has been complicated by the recent practice of state and local record keepers of making public records such as property deeds or court records available on the Internet. It said that even truncated versions of Social Security numbers can be vulnerable to ID thieves.
Sen. Charles Schumer, D-N.Y., who requested the GAO report, told a House hearing Thursday that he planned to reintroduce legislation to ban the display of Social Security numbers on the Internet by state and local record keepers and require consistent standards for truncation.
"We all know that when it comes to identity theft, the Social Security number is the golden key that opens all doors," Schumer told the Ways and Means subcommittee on Social Security.
The report said that the Internal Revenue Service and the Justice Department are the only federal agencies that commonly provide records containing Social Security numbers to state and local public record keepers. It said that annually the IRS generates about 900,000 lien notices for tax-related debts owed to the federal government while Justice issues about 11,000 notices for criminal or civil court-related debts.
The IRS has mandated the use of a truncated version of Social Security numbers, and many Justice Department districts have begun to truncate or remove the numbers on lien records.
Acting IRS Commissioner Kevin Brown, in a letter to the GAO, said the agency in January 2006 implemented truncation on notices of federal tax liens and will also truncate numbers on certificates of release related to those filings.
The GAO said that despite these steps, "full Social Security numbers remain in the millions of lien records provided to public record keepers before the agencies implemented these changes."
It said some Justice Department districts continue to display full Social Security numbers in lien records and that identity thieves may still be able to reconstruct Social Security numbers by combining different truncated versions available from public and private sources.
"Providing for uses of Social Security numbers that benefit the public while protecting their privacy is a complex balancing act," said Rep. Sam Johnson, R-Texas, top Republican on the Ways and Means panel. "But I believe we must act to stop the rampant overuse and abuse of Social Security numbers."
Johnson cited Federal Trade Commission findings that over a one-year period nearly 10 million people, or about 5 percent of the adult population, discovered they were victims of identity theft.
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On the Net:
The GAO report: http://www.gao.gov/new.items/d07752.pdf
