The thing about social security is that it was supposed to be used for a fairly narrow system, and the physical cards even have text like "not to be used as identification" on them. And then we used it for that anyway

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namibj 3 hours ago | parent [-]

The German equivalent to the SSN in it's ubiquity, the "federal tax id", is illegal to use for non-tax purposes.

As a German that feels about correct.

	▲	salawat an hour ago \| parent [-]
		SSN is technically the same. The Social Security Act, actually has that point explicitly called out. Did anyone listen? Nope.