ID == Authentication Error When I got my first driver's license in Georgia USA, 1986, the license number was my SSN. Every system used it to identify you: bank

ID == Authentication Error When I got my first driver's license in Georgia USA, 1986, the license number was my SSN. Every system used it to identify you: banks, doctors... But things started to get weird. As other have already commented, everyone got confused, and let "Identity" = "Authorization". Perhaps in a world of paper records, this system would have been ok. But always more transactions from remote locations. Many stores required you to write the last four digits of SSN on checks, or credit card slips, because they had no way of authorizing the transaction with your bank. Large vendors had these little modems that could dial up and talk to your bank, but small shops only had paper. Anyway, it was in the banks' interest to roll out Point-Of-Sale transaction tech, because USA banking laws committed the bank to pay the vendor. But fraud increased as the tech got faster. Someone noted that Social Security, by explicit law, cannot be used as ID in any situation that is not directly involving a Social Security pension or insurance. The banks and medical systems rolled a lot of the shift away from SSN under their huge Y2K projects. Here we are. Now they all ask for other publicly-available personal information, and still confuse ID with Auth.