House Panel Advances Social Security Identity Theft Bills

The House Ways and Means Committee passed two bills Wednesday to help victims whose Social Security numbers have been compromised, as one advocate called such identity theft scams an “epidemic.”

The Improving Social Security’s Service to Victims of Identity Theft Act, H.R. 3784, introduced by Rep. Drew Ferguson, R-Ga., would provide for a single point of contact at the Social Security Administration for individuals who have been victims of identity theft.

In 2022, there were over 1,800 reported data breaches, more than 1,100 of which included SSNs, impacting roughly 422 million individual records, according to Ways and Means Committee Chairman Jason Smith, R-Mo.

The Social Security Child Protection Act of 2023, H.R. 3667, introduced by Reps. Brad Wenstrup, R-Ohio, and Earl Blumenauer, D-Ore., would direct the SSA to issue a new Social Security number to a child under 14 if that child’s Social Security card was stolen while being sent.

Smith noted that before the SSA will issue a new SSN, “current SSA policy requires a numberholder to not only show that their SSN has been misused by a third party, but also that this misuse caused actual harm or disadvantaged the numberholder.”

According to a recent report, roughly 1.25 million children were the victims of identity fraud in 2021, Smith said.