Todd Davis and LifeLock, My Social Security Number
Written by Confusion support on May 26, 2008 – 5:20 pm -
I had contemplated using LifeLock on and off for years. Now I see the founder Todd Davis admits that it is not 100% fool-proof, and that even he had his identity partially stolen! For those that don’t already know, LifeLock is a company, that for a subscription, supposedly guarantees that your identity will not be stolen, and supposedly will pay you $1 million if it is (although that turned out to be a hoax of sorts, since it was only guaranteeing that one credit bureau would put an alert on your file).
The CNN article that I read kept emphasizing that it was because he had revealed his Social Security number in every ad that his identity had been used several times by others for getting fake driver’s licenses, and at least one small loan. The article exclaimed that no one should be giving out their Social Security number. This kind of irritated and confused me.
How do they expect people to keep their Social Security numbers hidden when any time you buy a large item such as house or car, you have to give it out? Anytime you seek employment you give it out, as well as for any loan application, schooling and apartment application. If you run a business as a sole proprietor, you give it out at even more places! I must have given my Social Security number out close to a hundred times and all of those times it was written down and passed through an organization where countless other people saw it. If you write your number down on an application it isn’t immediately sealed in a top secret envelop! It probably gets passed around as it goes through management! I applied for an apartment once and brought up that they aren’t allowed to take my Social Security number. The manager said they would have to deny my application if I didn’t list it because it was a mandatory field! This is the kind of confusing mentality we have in the world now.
The government (or news media) should not proceed to go around preaching about hiding your Social Security number when countless businesses are taking numbers down daily and not being regulated. I went to get a drivers license recently and the instructions CLEARLY stated that you needed two forms of id or one form and your Social Security card. I repeat, it said you needed the card. The clerk (at Pennsylvania DOT) neither asked for a second form of ID nor my Social Security card. Many local, state or federal government forms themselves have countless Social Security numbers on them. I guarantee they are not all secured nightly either! I’ll give the first person $1 million dollars who can prove that they are!
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