Social Security Numbers Faxing

CTAYLOR

We provide Continuing Education testing to individuals in the Insurance field. The Department of Insurance requires that we obtain the student's SS#. We were planning on having the student fax the form to us which will contains the SS#. The students are not employees of our company but we need to know if we are allowed to require students to fax the SS#'s to us verses some other method of transmission.

Basically, is it legal to fax a document containing a SS#?

marc

I would check with the Dept of Insurance - perhaps they require you to view the original card? If not, and they will take any number given - then how you get the number is a moot point.

I would not fax my number to an open fax machine - too much opportunity for abuse.

POPEYE

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>The students are not >employees of our company

Given your statement above, my question would be, why would you have their SS# to begin with? We utilize temporary staffing and I refuse to let one of them put their SS# on anything here at our facility.

CTAYLOR

The states require that we have ss#'s to identify the student who sucessfully gets certified. We do not have a choice, My question is whether the privacy law allows SS#'s to be transmitted by Fax.

Hunter1

I'm not aware of any law which would keep you from faxing a Social Security number. If you're dealing with some state agency which requires the number for their records, they better have a fax machine in a fairly secure area. They're going to have all of the students' numbers in their files anyway.

Don D

To answer your question, it is not illegal to ask for anything you want to ask for, including ssn and blood type. And if the participant decides to comply, he is self disclosing and forwarding his own ssn via fax. Your company has a right to ask for it. The participant also has a right to refuse to give it to you. I would not give you my social security number unless you were paying me and needed to report my number to the IRS or match it with a 1099. Your company needs to find a more acceptable method of tracking its trainees.

The only government document I'm aware of that it's against the law to copy and transmit is US Currency.

TN HR

And DoD-issued ID cards; i.e. geneva convention, etc.