Capturing Social Security Numbers

I thought that the laws changed (or rather became enforced) and it isn't acceptable to use SSNs as identifiers anymore, unless you are the Social Security Administration.  In high school, we were told to memorize our SSN because it would be our college ID number.  But when I got to college, I was in the first or second class where they assigned us different ID numbers because they were not supposed to use SSN any more.


www.FamilySearch.org used to show you the SSN for a deceased individual, and I used to record it in RE to indicate that I'd confirmed the information.  But they don't show that field anymore.


I don't know about NetCommunity, but in Online Express you could ask for SSN on a Donation Page as a Gift Attribute.  I wouldn't make it required, though, or you'll likely lose out on some donations.  For Email Signups, we're still limited to just First Name, Last Name, Email Address.  Unless you build your own form instead of using the built-in OLX Sign Up form.

That makes a bit more sense.  And I think Gift Attribute will be the place for it.  You might consider whether you want to copy that number to Bio1 or just leave it buried on the Gift Record, just so you don't have a lot of SSNs available to anyone with access to your database.  In RE7, you can hide the SSN field if you want to, but if it's visible in NXT already, you can't hide it there.

Colleen Jones:

Jessica Schneider:

Looking for a way to capture Social Security Numbers for RENXT online via NetCommunity or Online Express. Any colleges or universities out there have any solutions?

As a higher ed instiution, we used to import student ssn's from Admissions, and on other occasions when a gift officer was working on a planned giving vehicle for an older alumnus.  But we made the decision recently that we really didn't need them and didn't want to assume the risk to maintain them in our RE fundraising db - .  After storing the last 4 digits elsewhere, the ssn's were deleted.  If a college system is hacked, that personal information won't be available in OUR db!  No looking back.  We are functioning quite well without them. So far, the student system still maintains them for financial aid, federal requirements, etc. but they are optional on the Common App.

 

I feel bad for resurrecting an old thread but our organization recently came to the same conclusion about liability. Do you have any recommendations regarding the process? I was planning to use Import to clear them out.