Yesterday, I wrote an article about how Canadians can reduce their risk of falling victim to an identity theft by only giving their Social Insurance Number to those organizations that absolutely require it, and that are mandated to receive it.  In that article, I promised to do a little bit more research into Social Security Numbers so that I could give American readers the same advice I gave to Canadian readers.

I managed to find a couple of great sources and learned a whole lot about how Americans can protect their Social Security Numbers.  In the course of learning about this, I was happy to discover that American and Canadian laws are surprisingly similar when it comes to protecting these very important pieces of identification.

According to United States law, very few entities can actually demand your Social Security Number.  These include:

• motor vehicle departments
• tax departments
• welfare departments
• banks, brokerages, employers and the like (any transactions involving tax require a Social Security Number)

Most other businesses have no right to demand your Social Security Number.  The Social Security Administration suggests that you, "be careful about sharing your number, even when you are asked for it. You should ask why your number is needed, how it will be used and what will happen if you refuse."  While there is no law forbidding other kinds of organizations from asking for your number, there is also no law forcing you to give it out (except in the four cases cited above).  Therefore, you always have the right to refuse to hand over your Social Security Number.

Remember though, if you refuse to give an organization your Social Security Number, that organization has the right to refuse to do business with you.