How the government could eliminate SSN fraud...

There's a simple step the government could take to help combat identity theft and other forms of fraud involving social security numbers. Eliminate them.

With a new infrastructure, the social security number we know now could be replaced with numbers that are single-use - predestined at their creation to allow a single entity to link us to our social security records - the way it would work would go something like this:

An employer, bank, or other entity with a legal requirement to link you to your social security record would provide you with their EIN or an equivalent.  You would provide the social security administration an authenticated request to provide the employer (or other entity) with your information. They would provide an identifier to that entity that is only unique to their organization, and only valid for a given time period. You would then provide that entity the new identifier, and they'd be able to "redeem" this identifier to obtain a link for tax reporting.

Only slightly more complicated, and it also puts into force a mandatory validation with social security for employment purposes - which would serve to discourage employment of illegal immigrants too.

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