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Path: utzoo!linus!decvax!cca!ima!johnl
From: johnl@ima.UUCP
Newsgroups: net.flame
Subject: Re: SS numbers - (nf)
Message-ID: <384@ima.UUCP>
Date: Mon, 29-Aug-83 18:36:47 EDT
Article-I.D.: ima.384
Posted: Mon Aug 29 18:36:47 1983
Date-Received: Tue, 30-Aug-83 22:55:05 EDT
Lines: 24

#R:cornell:-515000:ima:28700001:000:984
ima!johnl    Aug 29 13:12:00 1983

A while ago, I looked into who can ask for your SSN.  For government
agencies, at any level of government, the answer is quite clear.  Every
time they ask, they have to tell you under what authority they ask and
what will happen if you don't tell them.  (Connecticut tax returns, for
example, say that they'd appreciate your SSN, but you don't have to tell
them.)

Anybody who pays you money, e.g. employer, bank, company in which you own
stock, is required to get to your SSN so they can identify the payments
for tax purposes.

Other than that, the law says nothing.  On the one hand, they have no
explicit right to ask, but on the other hand they aren't forbidden from
being unhelpful if you don't give it.

I went to some effort to forget my SSN, which wasn't easy considering
that I can still recite the PDP-8 instruction set in octal from memory,
having used it last in 1971, so when people ask, I can say "Duh, I
dunno."  If they insist, I make one up.

John Levine, ima!johnl