Social Security Numbers and User Authentication

[Michael Sauers]

>At a recent workshop, three librarians mentioned that they thought
>it was *illegal* to use the social security number for user
>authentication. (Not to mention that few people will want to anyway.)
>Does anyone know anything about the legality of using SSNs for
>authentication? (Haven't found anything in the archives of this list.)


This is my understanding of the SSN issue:

You SSN is only for the purpose of identifying you the the Social Security
Administration (SSA). However, over the years many institutions (govt. and
private) and companies have found it convienent to use a person's SSN as an
identification number.  (The more this happens the more privacy advocates
start to cringe).  If a person (a student in your case) requests of the
university that his/her SSN not be used as their ID number, that is well
within their rights and the university must assign them another number.
Schools tend to cringe at this since it means extra paperwork but they must.

Although I personally don't like you requiring the students to use their
SSNs to access the computers, if that is their student ID I don't see a
"legal" problem with it.  If someone complains you should send them along to
andmissions and/or administration to deal with the issue.

Michael Sauers                                           msauers at bcr.org
Internet Trainer                               (me)www.llv.com/~msauers/
Bibliographic Center for Research (BCR)                 (BCR)www.bcr.org
     All opinions expressed are just my own unless otherwise noted