Everyone has heard about the threats of identity theft. Don’t send your passwords out in e-mail. Use alphanumeric passwords so they are harder to figure out. Don’t give out your personal information.

Yet, even with all this, Sacramento State still uses our Social Security number to identify us.The Social Security number was originally meant to be a way to keep track of an individual’s earnings, according to the Social Security Web site.

So why does it seem to be the primary identifier for so many things?

Last semester, the university was forced to change out the One Cards in response to a new law stating that a person’s Social Security number cannot be displayed to the public.

Yet, that same semester, that very number was sent out on registration invitations.This semester, it wasn’t done.

According to the university, the reason for not sending out the registration invitations and schedule confirmations with students’ SSN on them was to save paper.

It wasn’t to prevent the possibility of someone stealing that information and using it. It was to save paper.

The response to the use of the SSN as an I.D. number doesn’t seem to bother students, however.”I don’t think it’s a big deal,” Kim Le, a senior in business, said.”At least I don’t have to memorize a new number,” Charleston Dones, a pre-nursing sophomore, said.

Dones may not get his way.

According to Miguel Molina, the associate director of Admissions and Records, Sac State is getting ready to change the student I.D.s over to a new system called PeopleSoft in two years.

The new system would issue a random number to each student, making it safer than having to recite a student’s SSN over the phone.

While the new system would cost the university money, what new project doesn’t? It would save money overall.

Instead of having to change the system of using a student’s SSN now and then having to move to a new software system later, there will be a one-time move from having the SSN as the student I.D. to having random numbers.

However, as scuttlebutt goes around campus and talks continue as they have for years now, it seems that the day when random student I.D. numbers will be the norm is still far off.

In the meantime, it would be helpful if the university would at least begin using just the last four numbers of the SSN rather than the full number. While this would take a bit more time in looking up students’ information, it would be safer than having to recite or type the full number every time a student wants information.

Contact Jenna Hughes at [email protected]