SSA ‘corrects’ millions of Social Security Number database files
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The agency says the data cleaning is part of its commitment to prevent fraud, but at least one group is raising concerns about the work.
The Social Security Administration has used internal and external data to correct nearly 15% of all active Social Security Numbers across 330 million U.S. citizens and nearly 390 million total records, according to a press release from last Tuesday.
The agency says updates to its SSN databases reflect its commitment to protecting Americans’ identity, preventing fraud and preserving proper program administration.
“The Social Security Number database is our country’s books and records. The database’s accuracy is essential to maintaining integrity of government services for citizens,” SSA Commissioner Frank Bisignano said in the release.
The agency says the SSN cleanup effort has added 17 million death dates to records that previously lacked them by using internal SSA and State Department data.
SSA says it has updated roughly 25 million records missing citizenship information by using the Department of Homeland Security’s Systematic Alien Verification for Entitlements — or SAVE — services. The agency is currently working on correcting another 8.5 million records with inaccurate immigration status.
“This is the first time SSA has undertaken an effort of this scale, and I am proud of the work we have done to strengthen the foundation of identity data relied upon throughout government and the economy,” Bisignano said.
The National Committee to Preserve Social Security and Medicare, an independent nonprofit, raised concerns about SSA’s push to clean SSN data in an Oct. 23 blog post.
The group warned that the SAVE database is “incomplete and prone to errors,” pointing to instances where the system has mistakenly flagged U.S. citizens as non-citizens.
“Now, some of the SAVE inaccuracies will be transferred into SSA’s files, doubling down on the use of inaccurate data and making it even more difficult to find an uncorrupted file to check data against,” Max Richtman, the committee’s president and CEO, said in the post.
The group also argued that the Trump administration could not be trusted with updating SSA data because of past alleged misuse, such as intentionally including living people in a database of dead people and a former Department of Government Efficiency employee uploading sensitive information into a thumb drive.
An SSA spokesperson referred to the agency’s release when asked for comment on the SSN corrections.