Agency leaks thousands of SSNs each year.

• Position: CONSUMER RECORDS - Social security numbers - Brief article

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More than 400,000 Social Security numbers (SSNs) may have been mistakenly published during the past 30 years as a result of errors made by Social Security Administration (SSA) employees, according to a report.

The Scripps Howard News Service reported that the SSA puts thousands of Americans at risk of identity theft each year by accidentally leaking their SSNs, names, and birth dates.

The leaks are caused by keying errors made by SSA employees when they enter data into the agency's Death Master File, a database that contains the records of 90 million deceased Americans, Scripps Howard said.

Since 1980, when the SSA first started making the file publicly available, more than 400,000 SSNs of living Americans may have been inadvertently published as a result of the errors, according to the report.

In most cases, the victims of the breaches were not informed and only discovered the error after they experienced problems, such as frozen bank accounts, refused job interviews, or declined loan...