NYT: Migrants' Social Security Sideline: Number Rental

[DeepModem Mom]

Migrants' Social Security Sideline: Number Rental
By EDUARDO PORTER
Published: June 7, 2005


TLALCHAPA, Mexico - Gerardo Luviano is looking for somebody to rent his Social Security number.

Mr. Luviano, 39, obtained legal residence in the United States almost 20 years ago. But these days, back in Mexico, teaching beekeeping at the local high school in this hot, dusty town in the southwestern part of the country, Mr. Luviano is not using his Social Security number. So he is looking for an illegal immigrant in the United States to use it for him - providing a little cash along the way.

"I've almost managed to contact somebody to lend my number to," Mr. Luviano said. "My brother in California has a friend who has crops and has people that need one."

Mr. Luviano's pending transaction is merely a blip in a shadowy yet vibrant underground market. Virtually undetected by American authorities, operating below the radar in immigrant communities from coast to coast, a secondary trade in identities has emerged straddling both sides of the Mexico-United States border....

***

Hundreds of thousands of immigrants who cross the border from Mexico illegally each year need to procure a legal identity that will allow them to work in the United States. Many legal immigrants, whether living in the United States or back in Mexico, are happy to provide them: as they pad their earnings by letting illegal immigrants work under their name and number, they also enhance their own unemployment and pension benefits. And sometimes they charge for the favor....


http://www.nytimes.com/2005/06/07/business/07immigrant.html?ei=5094&en=9d3eef5e3ef5b672&hp=&ex=1118116800&adxnnl=1&partner=homepage&adxnnlx=1118113276-0laBcNRQ8xLumi/ZM4OyFA

[Gormy Cuss]

1. Not news to some of us.

If you have reason to track individuals for longitudinal studies, this is old news. Often an entire family shares one SSN.

It's one of the reasons I think the info brokers need to be reined in. They'd give us 'hits' (records for the person we were tracking) all the time that instead revealed a bogus SSN. They would sell the record to us as if legit even with 5 aliases. GIGO.

[DeepModem Mom]

2. Thanks for an inside view, GC -- this was news to me. nt

[Gormy Cuss]

4. Wow -- and you're my go to person for science/tech news

seriously, I had the displeasure to work with a significant amount of credit bureau data. Accuracy is directly correlated with income and family stability. Credit bureau data for low income individuals is fraught with error, the SSN sharing issue not withstanding. Credit bureau data is blatantly biased to assume a middle class lifestyle as the norm and does not provide reliable data on either the wealthy nor low income individuals. Since credit scores are modeled from credit bureau data, they have similar limitations in accuracy. It was a shocking lesson. It's not as if it was too hard to get it right. I had trained interviewers who were able to find the right person with just a little ingenuity. The biggest problem with the info brokers is they just don't care about cleaning up the files. We need a legislative initiative to hold their feet to the fire on this issue. Ideally, we consumers could just say no to all the data mining but I don't see that happening with the alleged small government Repubs in charge.

[ima_sinnic]

5. yes, I saw this too in a tracking job I had

-- some SSNs are virtually "generic."

[DeepModem Mom]

6. Fascinating! nt

[TahitiNut]

3. Symmetry. Identity Theft balanced with Identity Rental.

Just a version of selling entitlements.