Path: utzoo!attcan!utgpu!jarvis.csri.toronto.edu!rutgers!bellcore!dduck!duncan
From: duncan@dduck.ctt.bellcore.com (Scott Duncan)
Newsgroups: comp.org.ieee
Subject: Re: SS numbers
Message-ID: <16421@bellcore.bellcore.com>
Date: 25 May 89 18:23:56 GMT
References: <4268@ficc.uu.net>
Sender: news@bellcore.bellcore.com
Reply-To: duncan@ctt.bellcore.com (Scott Duncan)
Lines: 29

In article <4268@ficc.uu.net> jeffd@ficc.uu.net (jeff daiell) writes:

>
>  SS Numbers were also originally intended to be for SS and/or
>income tax purposes only.  Cards not *that* long ago (early
>1960s) even declared,
>
>   "For tax purposes only - not to be used for identification."

I have one of those old cards.  It says:

	"For social security and tax purposes - not for identification."

And I had it explained to me that it meant that the card was not sufficient
for identification purposes, i.e., when you needed to prove who you were, it
could not be used to do so.  It was not, according to what I have been told,
intended that the number itself was not to be used for identification purposes.

>  So, the promise that the SS number would not become and ID
>joins a long list of government promises to bite the dust.

According to the explanation given to me, there was never any promise of the
SS number as an ID.  I can believe this was what many people were told and
what they thought, but in the mid/late-50's, this is NOT what I was told.

Speaking only for myself, of course, I am...
Scott P. Duncan (duncan@ctt.bellcore.com OR ...!bellcore!ctt!duncan)
                (Bellcore, 444 Hoes Lane  RRC 1H-210, Piscataway, NJ  08854)
                (201-699-3910 (w)   201-463-3683 (h))