"State finds easy access to Social Security numbers of deceased" by David Abel, Globe Staff | April 17, 2010
A provision in federal law that reformed welfare in the 1990s also created a loophole that could allow swindlers to obtain the Social Security numbers of the recently deceased, according to a recent finding by the state auditor’s office.
The provision, which took effect in 1998 in Massachusetts, requires that the state’s Registry of Vital Records and Statistics include Social Security numbers on all certified death certificates. And anyone can obtain a death certificate from the registry for $18....
While there is no evidence that anyone has sought death certificates to assume a dead person’s identity, state Auditor Joseph DeNucci noted that over the years his investigators have found people using false Social Security numbers to fraudulently obtain everything from public benefits to the ability to work in the United States.
“The misuse of others’ Social Security numbers is well known among law enforcement agencies as a prime method of securing a new identity for individuals entering the country illegally or otherwise establishing a new identity to engage in illicit activities,’’ DeNucci wrote in the letter this month to congressman Stephen F. Lynch.
Glenn Briere, a spokesman for the auditor, cited one case of a woman from Haiti who received extensive cancer care in Massachusetts three years ago by using the Social Security number of someone who had died. She obtained thousands of dollars worth of health care with a fraudulent Medicaid card identification number before she returned to Haiti.
It was not clear how she obtained the Social Security number. Briere said he could not provide more information about that case or cite other incidents of those similarly abusing the system....
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