Social Security Look Up - New Government Liability

When it comes to Social Security look up systems, it is always a toss up between transparency and privacy. It is thus important to know what rules are currently in place in your State.

Social Security look up via the Internet has grown to be an increasingly controversial issue as the number of identity theft cases using data from government websites registered an upswing.

All of a sudden, the public's right to information no longer seems as important as the public's right not to be victimized using the same information readily available to criminals who seek to prey on a trusting public.

What is ironic is online Social Security databases were created expressly for minimizing identity fraud. A quick online look up enables a creditor, for instance, to verify if the person applying for a loan is indeed the person he claims to be and not someone using the identity of another to commit fraud – which is what online look ups are often used for today!

Social Security Look Up - Fraught With Dangers?

Social Security look up gained even more critics when, in July 2005, a woman from Hamilton County, Ohio fell prey to identity theft after a thief harvested her personal data, including her Social Security Number (SSN) from the country website.

The thief went on a $20,000 shopping spree and left the woman, Cindy Lambert, holding the bill. Her SSN, along with her signature and photo, ended up on the Hamilton website after she got a ticket for speeding. And Lambert was not the only victim. Other residents of the county also fell prey to thieves.

What was especially frustrating for Lambert was she had taken all the precautions to guard herself from identity thieves when the very county authorities tasked to protect her handed the thieves the tools to victimize her on a silver platter. Lambert says she “felt incredibly violated".

The Ohio county was one of the first in the US to make the bulk of its court records available over the Internet. After the incident, the county clerk began the removal of all online records that showed SSNs. The process, which involved more than 20 million web pages, took around a month.

Counties across America originally put public records online to save on document management expenses. Nowadays, however, online public records – not to mention increasingly sophisticated Social Security look up systems – are costing the same counties loads of man-hours to backtrack on the process to protect its citizens.

Furthermore, residents of states such as Virginia have gone to court to exercise the right to make their SSNs unavailable to state entities that will disseminate the data online. Most of them have been successful.

So does this mean that Social Security look up systems should be banned from existence? Not at all; they undoubtedly have benefits and advantages too. What is perhaps required is legislature to ensure limited access to the information or offer only limited information to those who use SSN lookup systems.

Want to conduct an SSN lookup now? Check out the top providers reviewed at RecordsSiteReviews' social security records section.
 
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