Social Security ....The monthly Check...yes or no

[Neto]

And no, we don't need a NEW national ID system because we already have a national ID system based on SSN/ITIN numbers. That doesn't mean you need to carry your SS card and show it as ID. Because it isn't an ID card. But a SSN/ITIN is necessary to conduct a vast number of types of government and business transactions in this country. And if such a system did not exist, the government would have to create it for the modern economy to operate.

Originally the SSN WAS considered a personal ID number, at least by the police in Oklahoma, who advized that it be used to identify personal property, by engraving it into each article. (When we were selling off my Dad's tools, it took some time to grind off his SSN from lots of tools. And my brother had his engraved on his old bike. I don't think I had ever done it, because I didn't get one until I was 18 or more, the first time I had a job that wasn't just for the church, with my Dad as the 'person responsible'.)

Aside from conspiracy theories of how a government might use a national ID system as a way to persecute certain groups of citizens, there would be several benefits in having a Federal ID card issued for every legal person in the nation (citizens and non-citizens legally in the country). Brazil has this type of registration process, and it is used for lots of purposes, such as a voting ID, official ID for being checked into the country, or when leaving, being checked out of the country. When the card is issued, a full set of finger prints are taken. If such a database were fully computerized, it would be a serious aid in the identification of perpetrators of crime. DNA sampling could also be added to the requirements. I realize that the citizenry here would "raise some serious Cain" if the government suggested such a thing, so it's not going to happen unless a totalitarian government takes over, but still, there would be benefits of such a program. Unfortunately also a great potential for misuse.

In the 1980's, the police in Tennessee were telling my grandparents to engrave their Drivers License number on their tools. Not anymore, not practical, and needs grinding off if the owner dies, etc..

I worked at the State of Tennessee in IT for 30 years, in 5 different departments. Several times the State had a data breech where the people in their databases had their name, address, and SSN stolen. But your SSN information without verification that it is "actually you" is nearly worthless. So Brazil having biometric fingerprints "on file" is good, but person would have to produce the fingerprints every time they used the ID process, which is not practical.

What they ask for is in the USA to see your Drivers License ID with a picture, which they visually match to see your face. That's a biometric process that requires no equipment.

When I worked in IT with the Drivers License group, they had a facial recognition program that compared every DL picture to every other DL picture to see if there were duplicates. An investigator would see if it was a case of identical twins, or someone with multiple DLs.

Tennessee Drivers license requires that you give them your physical address, no PO box, and you are legally required to tell them when you move.

So having an SSN is not nearly as much of an identifier as a Drivers License. As of around 10 years ago when I retired, the 50 States were not sharing information between them on who had a DL number or not. So potentially, you could have a DL in several states at once.

Even at the State of Tennessee, when you owed money on Child Support at the Dept of Human Services and were "banned" from all services in that Dept until you paid in full, you could still register as a Contractor at the Dept of Commerce and Insurance, or do business with the other departments, as they did not share information between departments.

As Will Rogers said, "You can be thankful you are not getting all of the government you are paying for."

One of the last projects I did at the Dept of Safety was to introduce them to the Perceptics Corp out of Oak Ridge. This company made some bulky license plate readers in 2002 when I worked with them, but I heard they had it down to a handheld "radar gun" model by 2013 when I left the State.

The device will take a picture of the back of the car, and extract the license number, match it against all the different types of plates (vanity, specialty, government) for all of the 50 states, and match it to a database to see if the car is stolen or whatever. US Customs uses this same technology at the Border.

The story I heard before I left the State is that a detective took one of the Commissioner's aides out to show how this technology worked, in Memphis TN, outside a school in a lower income area at "pickup time" around 3:00 pm.

They found that about 20% of the moms were driving their boyfriends cars to pick up their kids, and the boyfriend was wanted for DUI, outstanding warrants, or parking violations. So for public relations reasons, they chose not actively use the license plate readers. They also thought it might make people think their right to privacy was being invaded, and other reasons.

The Federal ID card was used in Brazil as the sole ID for most people, and no fingerprint verification process was used. (Although the card does include a thumb print on it, as I recall, w/o digging mine out.) But Brazilian citizens were not required to renew theirs from time to time, as were foreigners. So many adults had a childhood photo on their usually ragged ID card. Most people, if they could afford the small fee, would get an authenticated copy made, and then carry that, to preserve the original. (There is no comparative process for document authentication here in the States. The document is taken to a government office, where the original and the copy are compared, then the copy stamped & embossed with the government seal.)

As foreigners, we had to have a new card made every 4 years or so, and it was also plasticized, whereas the citizen card was just paper. Foreigners with legal residency status over the age of 59 or 60 do not need to replace their cards after that.

[Ken]

Chile has a national ID system and sounds more modern and secure than Brazil. My wife and daughters are all dual citizens and so have Chilean passports and national IDs and Chilean birth certificates. There is certainly no system of making certified copies like Brazil. It works like this:

Everyone at birth is issued a national ID number similar to how infants are issued social security numbers here in the US. That is your permanent ID number that then gets printed on various other ID cards like the Cedula de Identidad which is the normal ID most people carry. But it is also printed on your birth certificate and passport and other ID cards like your health insurance card, driver's license, social security (yes they have that too) university student IDs, etc.

Every town and neighborhood in larger cities has a federal office of vital records and you can walk into any one of them anywhere in the country to get a replacement Cedula, passport, or birth certificate. Or if you are overseas, to an consulate. So my family has renewed our passports at the consulates in Houston and San Francisco and gotten new Cedulas as those places as well.

The Cedula is a very secure plastic card with various laser holograms and biometric marks on it. On the back is your thumbprint and on the front is a small laser hologram of your thumbprint that is about 1/4" square. The back also has a readable barcode and also a scannable QR code to verify that it is valid. The card also has a separate internal serial number separate from your national ID number. So that if you have your card lost or stolen you report it missing and then go down to any civil records office and they issue you a new one with a new card serial number but your same national ID number and the old one is canceled.

What this means is that any business like a bank or store can instantly verify that the Cedula card that you present to them is valid by scanning the back and it if pops up as stolen or canceled they will know instantly. Same thing if you are voting. You scan your ID card at the precinct and if it is invalid they instantly know. And all the other ID cards like drivers license, student IDs, health insurance cards pair off the Cedula. So you don't need your picture on your drivers license. You present it to the police with your Cedula and they simply verify that the numbers match. They can also pull up your driving record and license endorsements and if your license has been suspended simply by scanning your Cedula, they don't even need the drivers license for that.

So not only is voting 100% secure since every voter in the country presents the same exact card that is scanned and instantly verified, but also things like identity theft and financial fraud are less problematic. In Chile they don't do the ridiculously stupid thing of issuing credit cards and bank accounts online or via the mail (how many credit card offers have we all gotten over the years?) Instead if you want a bank account or credit card you present yourself to an actual physical bank branch, fill out actual paperwork, and they verify your ID in person, credit history in person, etc. It might take a week or so until they are finally satisfied and then you go back down and get your cards in person. No mail. It would be vastly more difficult for an identity thief to open an account in your name because just knowing your national ID number does nothing. They have to go to the bank in person and present a current valid national ID card with biometric information on it that the bank can verify to make sure that (1) the ID card is valid and not fake, and (2) that you are the person to whom the card was issued.

Yes they still have financial crimes and such but the garden variety ID theft seems to be less of an issue. It's more things like phone hacking. They also have less credit card fraud because credit cards have PIN numbers just like ATM cards and are useless without knowing the PIN. And they are all chip-read cards so a merchant can't steal the number, it is encrypted. Also you never hand over your credit card to anyone, even at restaurants. They bring the portable card reader to your table and you swipe it yourself, not the waiter.

Will such a system ever be implemented in the US? No, I doubt it because we are so invested in our current systems and the switchover would be enormously expensive and require massive rollout of offices nationwide to implement. But that doesn't mean it wouldn't be a good idea and solve a lot of problems like identity theft. At best the Federal government will try to standardize IDs across the 50 states but even that seems ridiculously complicated as was the case with Real ID which still isn't implemented 20+ years after 9-11.

[Neto]

Chile has a national ID system and sounds more modern and secure than Brazil. My wife and daughters are all dual citizens and so have Chilean passports and national IDs and Chilean birth certificates. There is certainly no system of making certified copies like Brazil. It works like this:

Everyone at birth is issued a national ID number similar to how infants are issued social security numbers here in the US. That is your permanent ID number that then gets printed on various other ID cards like the Cedula de Identidad which is the normal ID most people carry. But it is also printed on your birth certificate and passport and other ID cards like your health insurance card, driver's license, social security (yes they have that too) university student IDs, etc.

Every town and neighborhood in larger cities has a federal office of vital records and you can walk into any one of them anywhere in the country to get a replacement Cedula, passport, or birth certificate. Or if you are overseas, to an consulate. So my family has renewed our passports at the consulates in Houston and San Francisco and gotten new Cedulas as those places as well.

The Cedula is a very secure plastic card with various laser holograms and biometric marks on it. On the back is your thumbprint and on the front is a small laser hologram of your thumbprint that is about 1/4" square. The back also has a readable barcode and also a scannable QR code to verify that it is valid. The card also has a separate internal serial number separate from your national ID number. So that if you have your card lost or stolen you report it missing and then go down to any civil records office and they issue you a new one with a new card serial number but your same national ID number and the old one is canceled.

What this means is that any business like a bank or store can instantly verify that the Cedula card that you present to them is valid by scanning the back and it if pops up as stolen or canceled they will know instantly. Same thing if you are voting. You scan your ID card at the precinct and if it is invalid they instantly know. And all the other ID cards like drivers license, student IDs, health insurance cards pair off the Cedula. So you don't need your picture on your drivers license. You present it to the police with your Cedula and they simply verify that the numbers match. They can also pull up your driving record and license endorsements and if your license has been suspended simply by scanning your Cedula, they don't even need the drivers license for that.

So not only is voting 100% secure since every voter in the country presents the same exact card that is scanned and instantly verified, but also things like identity theft and financial fraud are less problematic. In Chile they don't do the ridiculously stupid thing of issuing credit cards and bank accounts online or via the mail (how many credit card offers have we all gotten over the years?) Instead if you want a bank account or credit card you present yourself to an actual physical bank branch, fill out actual paperwork, and they verify your ID in person, credit history in person, etc. It might take a week or so until they are finally satisfied and then you go back down and get your cards in person. No mail. It would be vastly more difficult for an identity thief to open an account in your name because just knowing your national ID number does nothing. They have to go to the bank in person and present a current valid national ID card with biometric information on it that the bank can verify to make sure that (1) the ID card is valid and not fake, and (2) that you are the person to whom the card was issued.

Yes they still have financial crimes and such but the garden variety ID theft seems to be less of an issue. It's more things like phone hacking. They also have less credit card fraud because credit cards have PIN numbers just like ATM cards and are useless without knowing the PIN. And they are all chip-read cards so a merchant can't steal the number, it is encrypted. Also you never hand over your credit card to anyone, even at restaurants. They bring the portable card reader to your table and you swipe it yourself, not the waiter.

Will such a system ever be implemented in the US? No, I doubt it because we are so invested in our current systems and the switchover would be enormously expensive and require massive rollout of offices nationwide to implement. But that doesn't mean it wouldn't be a good idea and solve a lot of problems like identity theft. At best the Federal government will try to standardize IDs across the 50 states but even that seems ridiculously complicated as was the case with Real ID which still isn't implemented 20+ years after 9-11.

Sounds like a really good approach. Brazil's system may now be very different than I explained it (farther up, above), because we have not had any of these things done for now more than 20 years. (Well, I did renew my driver's license at least once after we moved back here, and did also get a new Carteira once after that as well.) I would have to did my Carteira out of "cold storage" to know what the issue date was. (When we moved to Brazil in 85, no government offices used computers in the public access areas - probably had some in the back offices. Banks also used only typewriters. Same for the Cartorios, where that official document authorization process was done, births registered, etc. Maybe they are now not so "taken" with embossed stamping, either. Back then everything official had one somewhere on the paper, perhaps even multiple ones.)

I do think that there are many advantages of such a system as Chile's, to be implemented here in the States, and while I understand the initial financial costs, I think it would soon pay for itself. But I suspect that the public's opposition would be the greater difficulty in getting to the point of full compliance. It might work best to start out with just doing the new registrations that way at first, then make it so advantageous that others will willingly participate. But I can already "hear" the thoughts of even some people on this forum, who will automatically think "mark of the beast", just at such a suggestion. (Maybe I am already being "cyber-shunned" just for talking about it....)

[Josh]

Such a system presents a single point of failure and is easier to defraud than a widely distributed system with differing local systems.

But hey. This isn’t my opinion - this is the opinion of noted cybersecurity and electronic liberty experts. Of course, authoritarian regimes always want centralised ID.

“Comrade! Your papers, please.”

[ohio jones]

Yes they still have financial crimes and such but the garden variety ID theft seems to be less of an issue. It's more things like phone hacking. They also have less credit card fraud because credit cards have PIN numbers just like ATM cards and are useless without knowing the PIN. And they are all chip-read cards so a merchant can't steal the number, it is encrypted. Also you never hand over your credit card to anyone, even at restaurants. They bring the portable card reader to your table and you swipe it yourself, not the waiter.

Contactless credit cards are currently common in countless countries. No swiping or chipping, just hold the card against the reader. You do usually have to enter a PIN number when using the ATM machine, though that seems redundant.

[Josh]

Yes they still have financial crimes and such but the garden variety ID theft seems to be less of an issue. It's more things like phone hacking. They also have less credit card fraud because credit cards have PIN numbers just like ATM cards and are useless without knowing the PIN.

Contactless credit cards are currently common in countless countries. No swiping or chipping, just hold the card against the reader. You do usually have to enter a PIN number when using the ATM machine, though that seems redundant.

America's rules around credit card fraud don't allow shifting of blame to the cardholder if their card is stolen and the correct PIN is entered. Due to this, it's never made financial sense to impose the inconvenience and extra work of requiring a PIN for card transactions. (In other countries, PIN skimming is a huge problem; it's not nearly as common in America since the only target is debit cards for ATM machines, not credit cards in general.)

And they are all chip-read cards so a merchant can't steal the number, it is encrypted.

Virtually every credit card terminal in use in America nowadays works this way too. Occasionally you run into one that still requires being swiped.

Also you never hand over your credit card to anyone, even at restaurants. They bring the portable card reader to your table and you swipe it yourself, not the waiter.

This is becoming more and more common as well, although I personally don't like it. The difference in fraud is minimal. Nearly all credit-card fraud is online due to how common card-not-present transactions are, not small time operations trying to copy down card numbers in a restaurant.

[JayP]

I would advise folks to ignore the advice of many here and s k your financial advice as well as legal advice on SS somewhere else. Leave this discussion to the folks wearing tin hats.

[ohio jones]

PIN numbers

ATM machines

Et tu, Josh?

[ken_sylvania]

PIN numbers

ATM machines

Et tu, Josh?

[Ken]

I would advise folks to ignore the advice of many here and s k your financial advice as well as legal advice on SS somewhere else. Leave this discussion to the folks wearing tin hats.

The default is that Social Security is a program that every American who earns a wage pays into. And is therefore entitled to receive a benefit from in retirement that is based, in part, on the amount that they paid in. One doesn't have to do anything at all. It is simply there when you retire. You can choose to do whatever you want with the money that you are entitled to. You can use it in your retirement. You can give it to your church or other charity. You can save it for your future heirs. Or you can blow it at Vegas. It is your money.

Now there are a lot of Americans who are grumpy about the program because they feel they can do better by investing their money themselves. They may be right or may be wrong about that. The program is progressive in that it is tilted towards lower income recipients over the wealthy. So the wealthier you are the more likely that is to be true.

But that is neither here nor there. The real question is whether people of modest means should use a very narrow religious exemption to opt-out of the program. And should they make that irrevocable choice at a young age when they are 40+ years away from retirement. Rich people opt out of the program all the time and we never worry about that. Because the very rich tend not to earn wage incomes. Their incomes come from other sources that are not subject to social security taxes. Which is a whole different topic. But we generally don't worry about them.