No More SSNs on Defense ID Cards

When the current crop of Defense Department ID cards start to expire this June, they will be replaced with new ones that no longer contain a Social Security number as an identifier.

Air Force Maj. Monica Matoush, a Pentagon spokeswoman, said the SSN will be replaced by a new, unique 10-digit Defense ID number, and this shift will help reduce identity theft.

This is a real back-to-the-future concept as both my father, a veteran of The Big One, and I, when I served in the Marine Corps in the 1960s, had serial numbers, not Social Security numbers, as identifiers.

Maybe this is the beginning of the end of the use of SSNs as de facto national ID numbers.