Earlier quoted context omitted.
IMO, everyone's SSN should be public. Mine has already be compromised by both my undergrad and grad school. At this point, I operate under the assumption that it is public knowledge for bad actors. Hiding SSNs is false security at best. If they were public, banks would stop hiding behind "identity theft" and would start having to acknowledge that its their responsibility to confirm who they are lending money to.
The problem with identity in the USA has always been a religious problem more than anything else. All legislation aimed around allowing people to be identified by numbers has been killed due to the whole "mark of the beast" .. "can't buy sell or trade without your number" revelations rhetoric. As religion has less of an impact on people's daily lives, I expect this to change, but in the past it's been the one thing t…
This is easy to solve; simply make it illegal to use the identification number so capriciously. Define a narrow use-case for it, narrow enough to allay religious fears, and forbid anything other use if the ID number. Make it illegal to require customers to provide their ID number while making purchases, etc.
But once you do that, most of the desire to implement the system starts to disappear...