Inappropriate Information Harvesting

I fall squarely in the "I am not providing THAT" category.

Why is the SSN on teh HCFA 1500? It's a Gub'mnt form!!!
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I got asked for my SSN when getting the 8G badge we all loathe...I FLATLY refused and was able to get my badge anyway. You should have seen the looks on the faces when I handed the airport manager (who does a better than excellent job running our 'drome) excerpts from the Privacy Act of 1974.
 
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The point being that our government routinely violates Law. Routinely.
 
I'm going to be the lone voice saying that I usually provide it when asked. I figure the horse is way out of the barn since it was my pilot's certificate (and CFI) number until about 4 years ago when it was stolen along with my wallet. AFAIK there haven't been any negative consequences to this.
 
pookies said:
I've always wondered as to why someone needs your marital status. What's the difference between divorced and single, except for the obvious reasons?
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Knowing who next of kin is (for decisionmaking purposes) if you aren't able to communicate. And for stereotyping :goofy:.... and if they are REALLY cute, to jot their phone number down for "follow up":ihih::goofy:
 
denverpilot said:
Interesting. I believe CATS' requires testing facilities to retain a copy. Taken an FAA written recently? (I let 'em copy mine on Saturday... I figured it was better than getting my blood pressure up before a written test.)
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Thats fine.. You still dont have to give them a copy.... likewise.. they dont have to let you test either. Its not forced disclosure if you voluntarily offer it.
 
timrj said:
I stopped donating blood - and told the person at the NY blood center that I would not start again until they stopped collecting my SS number. There is no reason they need that.
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There is a valid reason. To keep the people previously disqualified from donating blood due to not so good things like hepatitis out of the donor pool. But sure, it's your blood, your SSN, do with it what you please.
 
weilke said:
There is a valid reason. To keep the people previously disqualified from donating blood due to not so good things like hepatitis out of the donor pool. But sure, it's your blood, your SSN, do with it what you please.
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Giving blood is ok... but all the questions about sex with various flora and fauna can be a bit off-putting....
 
bbchien said:
Why is the SSN on teh HCFA 1500? It's a Gub'mnt form!!!
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May have been on it when it was called HCFA, the current CMS version doesn't require the SSN (outside of tricare). Now, most older folks still use the SSN as their medicare number and tricare is entirely built on the SSN, but for a regular commercially insured customer there is no place to even put it on the form.
 
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dmccormack said:
Giving blood is ok... but all the questions about sex with various flora and fauna can be a bit off-putting....
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Sex with various flora and fauna increases the risk to be in the early (difficult to detect) post-infection stage of something we dont want in the blood supply.

The bigger problem is in the commercial plasma donation sector. As people get paid, it tends to attract the folks who are the bigger risks. The good thing is that you can treat plasma in ways that render the critters harmless (heat/soap), something you cant do with whole blood.
 
weilke said:
Sex with various flora and fauna increases the risk to be in the early (difficult to detect) post-infection stage of something we dont want in the blood supply.
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Instead of an endless barrage of questions concerning monkeys, sheep, and mermaids, a simple, open question would suffice:

"Are you in a monogamous relationship?"
 
dmccormack said:
Instead of an endless barrage of questions concerning monkeys, sheep, and mermaids, a simple, open question would suffice:

"Are you in a monogamous relationship?"
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How about "Have there been any medical or sexual changes since you last donated?"

I donate every eight weeks. It takes longer to answer the questions than it does to drain a pint of blood.

The worst abuse I saw was an unsecure website where my son had to apply for a part-time job at Stop & Shop. SS# was required. I told him to just switch a few digits around, and he did.

Sure enough his first paycheck came out the ss# from the website, not his W4
 
weilke said:
There is a valid reason. To keep the people previously disqualified from donating blood due to not so good things like hepatitis out of the donor pool. But sure, it's your blood, your SSN, do with it what you please.
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Your SSN is NOT AN IDENTIFICATION NUMBER! As stated already, it says that right on the freaking card.
 
tdager said:
Your SSN is NOT AN IDENTIFICATION NUMBER! As stated already, it says that right on the freaking card.
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Well, it "did" ... but cards issued after about 1970-something (1974?) no longer say that :(
 
tdager said:
Your SSN is NOT AN IDENTIFICATION NUMBER! As stated already, it says that right on the freaking card.
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For all practical purposes, it's the only semi-unique identifier we have.

If you dont wish to do business with a private entity (blood-bank, doctors office, bank) that requests your SSN, feel free not to do business with them.

If goverment entities ask in situations where there is no connection to the administration of the social security act and you have no alternative to dealing with them (e.g. dept. of licensing, district of columbia), they shouldn't be allowed to ask.
 
dmccormack said:
Instead of an endless barrage of questions concerning monkeys, sheep, and mermaids, a simple, open question would suffice:

"Are you in a monogamous relationship?"
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Unfortunately, those questions have to be geared to the lowest common denominator, not the person of 'average intelligence'.

It gets even more bizarre if you really have to go into details of sexual history and you have to break it down to the 'has ever anyone put their thing here and there and not in the other one further back' level.
 
Look up the Privacy Act of 1974. Section 7 I think it is...

weilke said:
For all practical purposes, it's the only semi-unique identifier we have.

If you dont wish to do business with a private entity (blood-bank, doctors office, bank) that requests your SSN, feel free not to do business with them.

If goverment entities ask in situations where there is no connection to the administration of the social security act and you have no alternative to dealing with them (e.g. dept. of licensing, district of columbia), they shouldn't be allowed to ask.
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WA, along with a couple others states, have drivers licenses with SSN numbers on them. Irritates the heck out of me. No reason for it to be there. Oh, its for ID? Then why do I come across (on a far too regular basis) DL's that state "Identity Not Verified" on them?
 
Kelvin said:
Look up the Privacy Act of 1974. Section 7 I think it is...
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"It shall be unlawful for any Federal, State or local government agency to deny to any individual any right, benefit, or privilege provided by law because of such individual's refusal to disclose his social security account number."

I am not a goverment agency, neither is the blood bank.
 
Kelvin said:
Look up the Privacy Act of 1974. Section 7 I think it is...
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That law was passed by Congress.

If Congress passes a subsequent act specifying an exception to the privacy act regardless if it mentions the privacy act by way of reference, is that exception "illegal"?

There are numerous examples where disclosure of a SSN is mandatory by public law, or regulation authorized by public law, passed by Congress AFTER 1974.
 
DeeG said:
WA, along with a couple others states, have drivers licenses with SSN numbers on them.
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It was like that when I lived in ID in the 1980s. In fact that was your DL number, just like your pilot's certificate.
 
I was wondering when someone was going to bring up the old pilot's certificates. I had to change mine...

There's a whole bunch of SSNs of CFIs in my logbook from back then... every endorsement in fact.

Since I know what CFIs get paid, I won't be attempting any identity theft... I'm betting their bank accounts are close to empty. :) :D
 
weilke said:
If you dont wish to do business with a private entity (blood-bank, doctors office, bank) that requests your SSN, feel free not to do business with them.
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And if a a business wishes to alienate customers...
 
timrj said:
I stopped donating blood - and told the person at the NY blood center that I would not start again until they stopped collecting my SS number. There is no reason they need that.
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I used to donate regularly, since I'm O negative. Except that I lived in the UK and Germany during the 1990s, now I'm banned from donating, in case I'm incubating Cruezfeldt-Jakob disease. The last time I tried to donate, the nurse didn't even know why I was banned, except that having lived in Europe is a reason. So I told her I would go home and incubate my (non-existent) Cruezfeldt-Jakob disease.
 
weilke said:
If you are willing to pay the entire cost of the visit before you walk out the door...
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Oh how I wish I could actually do this more often. I have the money now. The necessary service has been rendered. The price being charged is within reason (for medical). I want to pay now and move on to the next life challenge.

But nyooooooo! They want to duke it out with the insurance carrier.

I only just now got the bill for a visit back in February 2010 for an PCP office visit with blood work up.

A phone call to the billing department to clarify an item on the statement I did not grock on the first and second read got a positive answer to the question, "would this have been the amount I would have paid if the doctor would have accepted payment in February."

I tell them I want to do a cash pay. I expect a discount, but I want to do a cash pay. But still surprised and disappointed how many care providers will delay getting their money by just smiling at you and saying, "We'll just work it out with your insurance carrier".

To quote Bruce.... /sigh/
 
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DeeG said:
WA, along with a couple others states, have drivers licenses with SSN numbers on them. Irritates the heck out of me. No reason for it to be there. Oh, its for ID? Then why do I come across (on a far too regular basis) DL's that state "Identity Not Verified" on them?
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When did that start? I just renewed mine in 2009 and it doesn't have my SSN on it.
 
i donate platelets every 2 weeks. they have never asked me for my SSN that i can remember.
 
weilke said:
There is a valid reason. To keep the people previously disqualified from donating blood due to not so good things like hepatitis out of the donor pool. But sure, it's your blood, your SSN, do with it what you please.
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Are you kidding me? Isn't that what testing is for? There is NO reason for my ss#. It is a useless bit of information for them.
 
dmccormack said:
Instead of an endless barrage of questions concerning monkeys, sheep, and mermaids, a simple, open question would suffice:

"Are you in a monogamous relationship?"
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I know a few people who would answer "Yes" to that question, and add... "Today."
 
timrj said:
Are you kidding me? Isn't that what testing is for? There is NO reason for my ss#. It is a useless bit of information for them.
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Testing...
- will only find the virusses we know about and not catch new varieties. Hepatitis C was called 'non-A-non-B hepatitis' for a couple of years until the virus was isolated. We are up to H or so right now.
- is fallible. It is good but not 100%, so screening the donor pool to have as high a proportion of upstanding monogamous heterosexual non-brits in it as possible to depress your pre-test probability of bloodborne disease.
- will not catch that you answered 'Yes' to the 'did you ever have sex with monkeys or meerkats' question at a previous screening. If you did, you should remain disqualified even if you answer 'No' today. The SSN is one way to track identity, if it wasn't the credit sector wouldn't use it.
- for some critters has a 'blind spot' soon after infection and before a response by the host has been mounted. The only way to reduce the number of donors who fall into that blind spot is to exclude high-risk donors. See above.
 
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AggieMike88 said:
Oh how I wish I could actually do this more often. I have the money now. The necessary service has been rendered. The price being charged is within reason (for medical). I want to pay now and move on to the next life challenge.
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Unfortunately, most doctors offices are not well set up to accomodate the pre-pay or cash customer. If they are part of a larger prctice this is due to administrative inertia, if they are a smaller outfit they often outsource a lot of the admin work which makes it difficult to do anything that goes beyond the 'drivers license, insurance card and fill out this' cookie-cutter routine.

Also, while it would make sense to give a steep pre-pay discount, as I mentioned above, whenever there is something bizarre in medicine, it is the federal goverments fault (medicare insists on getting your 'best price'. So if a doc gives a lower than medicare price to cash customers, there is a risk of getting slapped with a couple of mil fraud verdict if medicare finds out during an audit that you 'overcharged' them. Medicare has private contractors that get paid a share of the 'fraud' they uncover, so they are quite inventive when it comes to finding paperwork inconsistncies.)
 
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Don't try to tip a doctor either. Their contracts with insurers specify what they will be paid and that they will accept no other payments. Geesh. Have to be sneaky to reward someone you really like.

Best,

Dave
 
Dave Siciliano said:
Don't try to tip a doctor either. Their contracts with insurers specify what they will be paid and that they will accept no other payments. Geesh. Have to be sneaky to reward someone you really like.

Best,

Dave
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I ran into this recently...sad really...the docs now can't take cash from you if you hold an insurance policy was how it was told to me...
 
weilke said:
Testing...
- will only find the virusses we know about and not catch new varieties. Hepatitis C was called 'non-A-non-B hepatitis' for a couple of years until the virus was isolated. We are up to H or so right now.
- is fallible. It is good but not 100%, so screening the donor pool to have as high a proportion of upstanding monogamous heterosexual non-brits in it as possible to depress your pre-test probability of bloodborne disease.
- will not catch that you answered 'Yes' to the 'did you ever have sex with monkeys or meerkats' question at a previous screening. If you did, you should remain disqualified even if you answer 'No' today. The SSN is one way to track identity, if it wasn't the credit sector wouldn't use it.
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Well, until they fix their system I am no longer donating. Their loss. There are other ways to identify people.

By the way, the credit reporting system is notorious for inaccuracies and low-quality information. Given that the blood supply folks can't even figure out that using a SSN is a bad idea i doubt their QA on information is any better. I still don't see how a SSN helps at all.
 
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