WASHINGTON–In light of the recent hacking of credit rating firm Equifax which stole the personal data of 145 million Americans, the White House Cybersecurity Coordinator has confirmed that the administration is making plans to phase out the Social Security number system, which was thoroughly compromised in the Equifax hack.
Joyce said on Thursday that the Trump administration “has formed an inter-government agencies working group,” which holds a weekly meeting to work on the plan to phase out the Social Security number. The working group is looking at how to move away from Social Security number—which is tremendously intertwined with existing institutions and practices—and to adopt a better and safer alternative system.
While not giving much specific detail, Joyce said that the administration is determined in its effort to eventually remove the reliance on the Social Security number.
“If we don’t start on the journey, we will never finish it,” Joyce said.
The recent Equifax hack, which took place between May and July and became publicly known in September, resulted in the stealing of the personal data of 145 million Americans by unidentified hackers. While many details surrounding the hack have yet to be revealed, it is known that the hackers managed to steal the Social Security numbers and dates of birth for almost all adult Americans with some form of credit record.
Critics of the Social Security number have long charged that the system, which was designed in the early 20th Century, is severely outdated, creating a privacy and security nightmare for all the Americans that rely on it for interactions with both the government and the private sector. The most commonly cited weakness is that the number can’t be changed even if it has been compromised.
“Equifax hack was my ‘enough’ moment,” said Rob Joyce, “We want to push this with an end goal in mind and try to use this burning platform to say, we got to move out.”
Removing the Social Security number from American life, however, will not be an easy task. Joyce said on Thursday that the administration will need help from the Congress and the industry to push forward the transition. The administration is looking at what technologies and proxies can be used to replace the Social Security number, said Joyce.
Such a system will be less vulnerable to be compromised on a massive scale, as in the case with the Equifax hack, since the government can always issue a new private key to someone whose key is compromised. The added process and complexity, however, means that it will take considerable time and resources to complete the transition for hundreds of millions of Americans with existing Social Security numbers.
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