Fear of data breach? Lock your social security number to protect your identity

for you Social Security number It is used to determine your identity in several ways to submit your tax declaration, to apply for a job or open a new credit line. This makes it a target of identity thieves, and why is it big if you are exposed to a Data leakage. If your identity is stolen, thieves can raise credit card debts, Stole your tax recovery Chaos caused dozens of other methods.

Freezing, or locking, makes your SSN more difficult for cyber criminals to access and benefit from your personal information. By combining a lock on SSN with a Credit freezingYou protect yourself from malignant activity.

Blocking electronic access to your SSN may be uncomfortable and extreme. But if you face the theft of identity or your personal identification information is hacked Change healthcare or National general dataSSN lock can protect you from future harm.

Read more: Social Security November 2024: Here are you when you expect your check

How to lock your social security number

There are two ways to prevent access to your social security number.

Contact the Social Security Administration

You can call SSA on 1-800-772-1213 Between 8 am and 7 pm local time, from Monday to Friday. Waiting times are usually shorter in the morning and later in the week. Once your identity is confirmed, SSA will hint its magic stick and prevent electronic access to SSN.

Create an E-Verify account

You can also create a file Mee-Verify Online account to lock your SSN and use the service Self -lock feature. The lock will continue for one year. But you will be alerted 30 days after its expiration, and you can extend the lock if you choose.

This resource is useful because many employers use E-Verify, a SSA service and American citizenship and immigration services, to verify your career.

When you close your social security number, a company looking to check SSN will not be able to check your identity, and prevent criminals from fraud. This option is also useful if you don’t want to capture the phone every time you want to unlock SSN.

The negative side of your SSN lock

The main defect in the SSN lock will look very familiar to anyone Freezing credit in place. When you block access to your SSN records, you also restrict your access to them. This means that you will have to pass the troubles of opening it whenever you need a new employer to check your eligibility to work in the United States or want to get government advantages.

This may be back and forth worthy of it for the individuals who have suffered from Employment ID theft And tax fraud. For more protection from tax identity theft, you can create ID protection pin With the Tax Authority to prevent another person from submitting a tax declaration with your individual taxpayer definition or the taxpayer ID number.

What is the difference between your SSN lock and credit freezing?

Credit freezing is different from locking social security numbers, although both are free. One blocks access to the social security record on the Internet while credit freezing restricts access to your credit reports. to Credit freezing procedureYou will need to contact all the three major credit offices (Experian, Equifax and Transnion) to prevent anyone from creating new credit accounts in your name.

Will the SSN lock be held from the identity stealing?

The answer here is very unjust: it may be. Lock your social security number can prevent the stealing of employment identity or a criminal preventing collection of government benefits in your name. But it will not prevent all forms of identity theft. As an additional precaution, you should share your social security number only when it is very necessary and is never a unlimited call or text message.

It is also good to monitor your financial accounts and your credit reports on any unusual activity. If you prefer to get a service to do this on behalf of you, you can subscribe to Credit Monitoring Service or Protect identity theft service. You can often register in credit monitoring to monitor your credit reports. ID theft protection often includes credit monitoring as well as dark web monitoring and alerts if your information is penetrated into data breach. If your identity is at risk, the protection of identity theft can help you restore it through the services of restoring white gloves.

For additional safety, you can freeze your credit with Experian, Transunion and Equifax to prevent identity thieves from opening new credit lines in your name, such as mortgage or car loan. I did this recently and found the process It is amazingly easy.

More tips on protecting your identity