By: Margarita Lim
Recently, the Social Security Administration (SSA) announced that it will change how Social Security numbers (SSN) will be issued, with a move toward a random method of assigning SSNs. Social Security numbers are historically 9 digits in length, and are comprised of a three-digit number that represents a geographic area, a two-digit number referred to as a Group number and a four digit serial number.You can go to http://www.ssa.gov/employer/randomization.html to learn more about this procedural change, but in summary, the random assignment of SSNs will affect:
• The geographic significance of the first three digits of the SSN because it will no longer uniquely represent specific states
• The correlation of the Group number (the fourth and fifth digits of the SSN) to an issuance date range.
What does this mean?
It means that if you’re a business or agency that uses any type of authentication product in order to minimize fraud losses, one of the components used to verify a consumer’s identity – Social Security number, will no longer be validated with respect to state and date. However, one of the main advantages of utilizing a risk-based approach to authentication is the reduction in over-reliance on one identity element validation result. Validation of SSN issuance date and state, while useful in determining certain levels of risk, is but one of many attributes and conditions utilized in detailed results, robust analytics, and risk-based decisioning. It can also be argued that the randomization of SSN issuance, while somewhat impacting the intelligence we can glean from a specific number, may also prove to be beneficial to consumer protection and the overall confidence in the SSN issuance process.
