Rotenberg as the Uber Enemy

[William H. Geiger III]

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In <v03102800afb7ba21be7b@[207.167.93.63]>, on 06/01/97 
   at 04:54 PM, Tim May <tcmay at got.net> said:

>I have no idea why they want a SS number, except perhaps that they see
>every government office demanding it and so they think it is part of the
>ID process. I of course would not give it. One is always free to turn
>down their offer of a 40 cent discount on eggs. Sounds fair to me.

IMHO the request for SS numbers are usally done out of convieniance more
than anything else. This is not to justify it just an explanation why so
many palces request SS numbers.

Anyone that has written database software where unique information is
stored on individules a SS number is quite convienat as everyone has a
unique one. Most employee, payroll, medical, insurance, credit, databases
use SS numbers rather than create individule id #'s. One's SS number has 2
unique qualities that make it perfect for this use: 1 every person has a
unique #, and 2 it never changes. This can not be said for any other
identifiers one may use, names, addresses, DL #'s, ...ect all have the
possiablity to change over time while your SS # is forever. By using SS #
as id #'s makes communication of data between diffrent database all that
much simpler. From personal experiance I can testify that the entier
Medical Insurance system is based on using SS # as identification. I
shudder to think trying to track medical records of patients over a period
of years between different doctors, hospitals, insurance companies without
using them.

I will not go into the privacy issues involved in using SS #'s for id #'s
as I am sure the members of the list are quite familiar with them. I just
wanted to point out that in some industries there is a technical advantage
to having 1 universal id #.

Now with that being said I personally would not shead any tears seeing SS
and SS #'s gone and to never return.

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William H. Geiger III  http://www.amaranth.com/~whgiii
Geiger Consulting    Cooking With Warp 4.0

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