For many years the Social Security number followed a certain pattern. The first three numbers would indicate from which state the SSN was issued. On in some cases, like the 700 numbers, it would indicate the job. In the case of the 700 numbers, most were issued early on to railroad workers.
But now all that has changed. The Social Security Number, going forward will be issued in a far more random fashion. The Social Security Administration claims the new number will be more difficult for the nefarious to piece together from merely gleaning public information. We shall see.
Anyway…here is notice of the new criteria…..
On June 25th, the Social Security Administration (SSA) migrated to a randomized method of assigning SSNs. All unassigned numbers within the numeric sequence have now been placed in one random pool with the exception of the 666 series and the 900 thru 999 series. Effective June 25, the assignment of a new SSN is much like a lottery; a random number is drawn from the unassigned pool of 420 million numbers available for assignment. The long term effects of this process change will become more apparent when today’s minors (with SSNs issued after June 25, 2011), become credit active. However, this change will also impact new immigrants, who are issued Social Security numbers starting June 25, 2011.
Why did the SSA make this change?
The SSA states that this new assignment method allows it to:
- Continue using the nine-digit SSN for many more years without exhausting its supply of numbers.
- Further protect an individual’s SSN from identity theft, fraud or misuse by making it more difficult to reconstruct a SSN using publicly available information.
For additional details from the Social Security Administration, you can refer to the SSA details at:
http://www.ssa.gov/employer/randomization.html
What does this mean to you as a client
Companies,who offer up–to–date information on an applicant’s past addresses and movement patterns based on name and social security number (SSN) will have to modify their methods. Corra Group will continue to provide SSN Assignment messages as follows:
- For SSNs not in the Random Pool (SSNs assigned prior to June 25th, 2011 from an SSN group that was completely used up prior to June 25th), we will continue to return the Year and State of Issue.
- For SSNs assigned after June 25, 2011 (or from an SSN Group that was not fully assigned by June 25th, 2011), we will generate an “Unable to Assess Year and State of Issue” message. While currently there is no automated commercially available solution to determine Year and State of Issue for these Random Pool SSNS
