Utah moves to protect its own against identity theft
The state will be the first in recent years to notify residents of the misuse of their Social Security numbers.
from the June 12, 2007 edition
Page 3 of 3
A third Utah man applied for public assistance for his family only to be told his household income exceeded the limit because wages were being reported on his child's number. The father refuses to be identified because of his sympathy for illegal immigrants.
McOmber, who spent two years in Guatemala on a Mormon mission, has seen the hardships that drive people to the US. "I love Latin Americans, but it's not fair to come in illegally and do that kind of thing. I'm all for people coming in legally."
If names don't match numbers
The SSA says it has $585 billion in wages placed in "suspense files." These are wages reported from the Internal Revenue Service on a W-2 form that shows a mismatch between name and number stored in its database. The SSA notifies the person on the W-2 – usually the perpetrator – if it's a case of ID theft.
Why not notify the person in the database who may be a victim?
"There is an IRS ruling that Social Security can't share that info we get from them with anybody else," says Dorothy Clark, a SSA spokeswoman. She adds that the agency often doesn't have a current address for the person in the database, nor can it determine citizenship status.
While Congress recently has held hearings on expanding tougher identity verification procedures by employers, that partial solution is a proxy for the illegal immigration fight, drowning out the ID theft issue, says a congressional staffer.
Hamp says Utah's Department of Workforce Services found that 20,025 Social Security numbers are being used by two or more individuals with different surnames. It found 606 children under 13 in its database who were showing earnings. The children drew national headlines, building momentum for the new notification law.
Heather Morton, an analyst in the National Council of State Legislatures who has been following the flurry of Social Security number legislation, says she knows of no other law that allows a state to notify individuals when their Social Security numbers have been compromised.
Utah officials say they will carefully gauge the response from the 100 letters. The letter directs recipients to a new website (www.idtheft.utah.gov) for assistance in reporting ID theft. The pace of subsequent mailings will depend on how well that system works, say Utah officials.
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