If they don't do any verification, and I'm not sure how they would in countries like the US, then any fraud case or attempt to claw in money from random people should be thrown out of court by any reasonable judge.

Requiring only public information and a SSN that has probably leaked hundreds of times and can be accessed by any number of random people in public and private administration just shouldn't count as even an attempt to verify identity.

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ryandrake 13 hours ago | parent | next [-]

SSN should just be considered public information at this point. It’s not secret so it cannot be treated as a password and it’s not even suitable as an identifier. It’s purpose is for tracking earnings, not identifying a person.

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torlok 13 hours ago | parent | next [-]

In Poland you can block your PESEL (SSN equivalent) to prevent this kind of fraud. One click in our government app or website. If PESEL is needed to confirm identify with a corporation you can unlock it temporarily.

	▲	throwaway047078 13 hours ago \| parent [-]
		I think it is slightly different in Poland. PESEL has status blocked or unblocked. Certain operations like taking loan or opening bank account requires PESEL to be unblocked at time of operation. But not everything requires unblocked PESEL. If it is not required to be unblocked by law, companies can still verify identity with PESEL even if status is blocked. Correct me if I am wrong. Anyway it is still big improvement.

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13 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-]

[deleted]

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somat 6 hours ago | parent | prev [-]

A national id number should have never been considered any more privileged or authoritative than a name in the first place, any business that does so is being criminally negligent.

I mean, that is why they exist, to replace names, or perhaps more accurately act as a surrogate key for names. The government specifically said don't use the SSN as a secret, and businesses did so anyway.

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13 hours ago | parent | prev [-]

[deleted]