Posts about Social Security Numbers by Professor Daniel J. Solove for his blog at TeachPrivacy, a privacy awareness and security training company.
Professor Woodrow Hartzog and I selected some key quotes from our new book, BREACHED! WHY DATA SECURITY LAW FAILS AND HOW TO IMPROVE IT (Oxford University Press 2022). Website for Breached! Breached! Amazon Page Download Chapter 1 for free The Law’s Obsessive and Unproductive Focus on Data Breaches “Too much of the current law of data security […]
I’m delighted to announce that my new book, Breached!, with Professor Woodrow Hartzog is now out in print: BREACHED! WHY DATA SECURITY LAW FAILS AND HOW TO IMPROVE IT (Oxford University Press, March 1, 2022) Website for Breached! Breached! Amazon Page Excerpt from the book jacket description: Drawing insights from many fascinating stories about data breaches, Solove […]
by Daniel J. Solove Identity theft is terrible crime, and it can wreak havoc on victims’ lives. In an identity theft, the thief uses a victim’s personal information to improperly access accounts, obtain credit in the victim’s name, or impersonate the victim for other purposes. But there is an effective way to stop a lot […]
Professor James Grimmelmann likes to shop at Kohl’s. So much so that he applied for credit at Kohl’s. And he got it. The problem is that James Grimmelmann didn’t really apply for anything. It was an identity thief.
Kudos to my friend Chris Hoofnagle (Samuelson Clinic at Berkeley Law School) who had his paper on SSRN written about by the New York Times:
For quite some time, banks and financial institutions have been using people’s Social Security Numbers (SSNs) to verify their identities. Suppose you want to access your bank account to check your balance, change addresses, or close out the account. You call the bank, but how does the bank know it’s really you? For a while, […]
From CNET: About 1.3 million customers of a Texas provider of student loans are at risk of ID fraud, after a contractor lost computer equipment with sensitive information on them. The equipment, which was not identified, contains the names and Social Security numbers of the borrowers, the Texas Guaranteed Student Loan company said in a statement […]
The AP reports an enormous breach of data security by the government: Thieves took sensitive personal information on 26.5 million U.S. veterans, including Social Security numbers and birth dates, after a Veterans Affairs employee improperly brought the material home, the government said Monday. The information involved mainly those veterans who served and have been discharged since 1975, […]
According to an article in the NY Times, documents obtained by the Electronic Privacy Information Center from the Social Security Administration (SSA) reveal that the SSA disclosed personal information in response to FBI requests after 9-11:
If you’re a professor, want to make a quick buck? Apparently, some professors have joined the ranks of identity thieves. A community college professor stole the identities of three of his students and used them to fill out credit card applications in the students’ names. According to a CNN story [link no longer available]: