No. You may not have my Social Security number

Suzanne Graham loathes giving out her Social Security number. That's why when the 59-year-old Cape Girardeau resident is asked for it, she's more than reluctant.

She refuses.

"I guess I'm just stubborn about it," she said last week. "I have no idea what they're going to do with it or where that number is going to wind up. My Social Security number is just private to me."

Graham has lost doctors, changed where she shops and told more than one eye-rolling cashier that she shouldn't have to give out her nine-digit number.

"If these places find it convenient to use my Social Security number, for me, that's too bad," she said.

When Social Security numbers, or SSNs, were first issued in 1936, the government assured the public that use of the numbers would be limited to Social Security-related programs.

Today, however, the number is the most frequently used record-keeping number in the United States. SSNs are used for employee files, medical records, health insurance accounts, credit and banking accounts, university ID cards and many other purposes. In fact, the SSN is now required for dependents at age 1 if the parents claim the child for tax purposes.

But many Americans are becoming more reluctant to give the number out, especially in today's increasingly technological world that includes cyber crimes and identity theft.

"You really don't have to give it to anyone unless it has to do with the IRS," said Dr. Mary Johnson, who teaches business law at Southeast Missouri State University. "I am all for protecting privacy. I think our privacy rights are eroding rapidly."

Social Security numbers were originally devised to keep an accurate record of each person's earnings and to subsequently monitor benefits paid under the Social Security program, according to Ted Spencer, district manager for the Social Security Administration in Cape Girardeau.

Specific laws require a person to provide a Social Security number for certain purposes, Spencer said. Social Security numbers are required by law to be given for specific uses, such as the IRS for tax purposes. Employers can ask for it for wage and tax reporting purposes.

Individual states can also ask for it for things like child support enforcement, welfare and the Department of Labor can ask for it for workers' compensation.

Any other business can ask for a SSN, Spencer said, but it's basically up to the person whether they want to give it. A customer can also ask what the number is going to be used for, he said.

"It's not illegal for businesses to ask," Spencer said. "But in the end, it's between the individual and the provider of service."

It's also not illegal, he said, for a business to refuse service if a customer declines to give the number.

Some have reported that their numbers have been misused. In 2004, the Office of Inspector General received nearly 10,000 allegations of Social Security number fraud.

Several businesses ask for a drivers license in order to do business, such as Hastings Books Music and Videos and Blockbuster and many grocery stores require a drivers license to cash checks. Some drivers elected to have their drivers license numbers switched to their Social Security numbers when that became an option in 1992.

But a federal law went into effect last year that regulated that SSNs could not be visible on drivers licenses, according to Missouri Department of Revenue spokeswoman Maura Browning.

As of Jan. 3, there were 4.6 million driver and nondrivers licenses issued by the department of revenue, Browning said. Of that number, 2.3 million license-holders opted to use a SSN as their license number, she said.

But as drivers renew their licenses, a new random number will be assigned to each license-holder, which will be a letter followed by nine digits. That means by Dec. 18, 2011, no drivers licenses will have a SSN on it, Browning said.

Still, some organizations are always going to require the use of a Social Security number.

Vicki Smith, CEO of Cross Trails Medical Center in Cape Girardeau, said the center is always going to need someone's number as a means of accessing insurance, past records and as a way to make sure a patient is who he claims.

"But we protect that information," she said. "No one has access to the numbers except on a need-to-know basis. We take that seriously."

smoyers@semissourian.com

335-6611, extension 137