Buy a dead person's identity from Social Security for $10
For $10, identity thieves can access the full name,
Social Security number and other personal information of a dead person through
a list of millions of deceased Americans, known as the Death Master File.
The Social Security Administration created the file to
help financial institutions and businesses prevent identity theft, by using the
file to cross-reference applicants or customers to make sure they are not using
a deceased person's identity. But Senator Bob Casey, a Pennsylvania Democrat,
said the agency is "inadvertently facilitating tax fraud" by allowing
any member of the general public to look up personal details about anyone who
has passed away and potentially steal their identity.
In a letter to the commissioner of the Social Security
Administration and the acting director of the Office of Management and Budget
on Thursday, Casey called for restrictions to be placed on access to the Death
Master File.
"Identity theft creates a significant hardship for
many American families, and robs our Nation of taxpayer dollars at a time when
we face serious fiscal challenges," Casey wrote. "Preventing the
widespread publication of deceased citizens' vital records is an important
first step."
Currently, the Social Security Administration provides
the file to the Department of Commerce's National Technical Information Service
(NTIS), which then distributes it to more than 450 entities including state and
local governments, hospitals, universities, financial institutions, insurance
companies, and genealogy services. However, anyone can access the information
through the NTIS website. To obtain records for one person, it costs $10. For
an annual subscription with unlimited access to all of the files of deceased
individuals, the price tag is $995.
The IRS has been adding protections -- like special
coding that allows the agency to identify deceased taxpayers whose Social
Security numbers were previously stolen -- to make it harder for identity
thieves to slip through the cracks. But the agency is struggling to keep up
with a surge in tax fraud, and the Treasury Inspector General said in May that
the IRS could end up doling out $26 billion in fraudulent refunds over the next
five years.
In a congressional hearing in May, IRS deputy
commissioner Steven Miller said that as of mid-April, his agency had already
flagged 91,000 tax returns that were filed under the names of recently deceased
individuals.
In his testimony, Miller cited an example of a Tennessee
woman who was fined $110,000 and sentenced to 108 months in prison this year
for obtaining names from the Death Master File and preparing fraudulent tax
returns to get undeserved refunds deposited into her bank account.
"This fraud not only takes revenue from the
government, but it also forces families that have just lost a loved one to
confront the ordeal of resolving this identity theft," Casey's letter
states. "These families often have no idea that their loved ones' personal
information had been put on sale by the federal government."
And the identities of dead people aren't just being
stolen for tax-related fraud. A recent report from fraud prevention firm ID
Analytics showed that identity thieves also steal the personal information to
apply for credit cards, cell phones and anything else requiring a credit check.
About 2.4 million deceased Americans each year get their identities stolen each
year -- amounting to a rate of more than 2,000 thefts per day.
The Social Security Administration makes the contents of
the Death Master File accessible to the public as a result of Freedom of
Information Act lawsuits. Legislation would therefore need to be passed in
order for the agency to restrict access to the file, Casey wrote in his letter.
The Social Security Administration did not immediately
respond to a request for comment.
Casey said that the Social Security Administration
submitted a proposal to the Office of Management and Budget that would limit
public access to the Death Master File, and the OMB now has the authority to
approve the proposal and put protections in place. The OMB did not immediately
respond to a request for comment. The Taxpayer Advocate Service, the watchdog arm of the
IRS, has also recommended that Social Security limit access to its file.
"We strongly support legislation to restrict public
access to the [Death Master File]," TAS said in its annual report released
last month. "By waiting for legislation that may or may not pass, we
unnecessarily expose taxpayers to potential harm."
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