cross-posted from: https://lemmy.world/post/13810367
Why exactly did a telecom company need SSNs anyway?
Edited to add, this was a rhetorical question and more a comment on the awful series of systems in the USA that leads a SSN to be used by telecom companies.
Credit checks.
Nowadays they offer financing for devices. But even in the past it was required. They would determine the maximum number of lines you had available, and if there were any deposits to open new lines of service. Even before phone financing, those phone contracts came with hundreds of dollars of phone discounts at time of purchase and had hundreds of dollars worth of early termination fees and they want to make sure their customers had a good chance of paying if they left.
Most people get suckered into signing a contract and using a “postpaid” plan, where you get the service for a month and then pay for it. That requires a credit check and credit reporting, since you get the service before payment. You don’t have to give out your SSN if you sign up for “prepaid” cell phone plans, which offer less discounts and benefits but are generally cheaper for the service they provide. The only catch is you pay for the month before you use it, but this makes canceling as easy as stopping payment.
I’m on a prepaid plan, and got in on a really good deal. They were offering $25/month off indefinitely for signing up for auto-pay (Basically 35% off, lol). It made the plan cheaper and better than most of their monthly plans. I’m happy to know it also saved me from giving out my SSN.
The main carriers offer prepaid plans, and there is no postpaid plan that doesn’t throttle speeds after you go over a certain amount when the towers a busy.
I think it’s related maybe to some anti terrorism law? In certain EU countries for example it’s impossible to get an anonymous SIM due to some anti terrorism legislation. SSNs are the only legal identification I guess?
This is a random guess off the top of my head. IANAL or know anything specific on US law.
SSN isn’t supposed to be used as a form of ID. Even says so on an SS card.
To run credit checks and be in compliance with anti-terrorism regulations.
But there’s no need to store them in what I assume to be plain text, this is negligence
I don’t remember that being part of the question I was answering. The question was why, not how. So the “But” seems confrontational in this context.
Is it dumb that they might have been in plain text or something close enough to it that it didn’t matter: of course. But that wasn’t the question.
I have been informed my SSN, DOB, and payment information have been “compromised” at least 50 times in my life.
Fight Club had it backwards. Instead of attacking the banks to wipe out people’s credit someone should release everyone’s SSN. The mass fraud will make credit useless.
It’s almost like the gov should replace the SSN system with something that addresses modern security concerns.
Social Security Numbers were never meant to be used for anything other than Social Security itself. Credit agencies use the SSN because they view it as an easy identifier and they didn’t have to create anything themselves.
It’s ridiculous how something that is supposed to be very confidential and kept private is asked everywhere you need services.
It was never supposed to be confidential. That need arose as a direct result of using it as an ID. If the SSA was the only organization using the number, (as originally intended,) then it wouldn’t need to be kept confidential.
But when the SSA gave every single person a unique number, other organizations went “hmm this sure would be convenient for differentiating individuals with similar names and DOBs.” So other organizations started using it for identification, and suddenly you needed to keep the number secret because anyone with your number could ID themselves as you.
The SSA needs to publish a public database of every single name, DOB, and SSN. Force organizations to figure out a new system of identification, instead of relying on an insecure and outdated system.
There is, just on a state level which does nothing for a nation with 50 of the fuckers
Good chance these were already leaked with the equifax debacle.
What did you do to freeze your stuff? And how do you thaw it for stuff, and how long does it take? I did go ahead and make my My Social Security account after seeing your comment though!
