A joint study of the FOI Advisory Council and the Joint Commission on Science and Technology has been analyzing access to Social Security numbers. The two organizations surveyed state and local government asking when and why they collected SSNs. When survey results showed just how widespread government collection of SSNs was, the joint committee agreed that the deadline date for agencies to stop collecting unnecessary SSNs needed to be pushed back by a year. Del. Joe May, R-Leesburg, and Sen. Edd Houck, D-Spotsylvania, successfully patroned similar bills in each house doing just that.
May also sponsored a bill creating the Protection of Social Security Numbers Act, generally prohibiting the release of the first five digits of a person’s SSN. The prohibition is mandatory, not discretionary like the exemptions found within FOIA are.
There are exceptions, including for law enforcement, intra- and inter-agency sharing, requesters seeking records with their own Social Security numbers, and when full disclosure is necessary to complete transactions. A Senate subcommittee on FOIA rejected a proposal by private investigators to give them a special exception, too.