They are claiming this is from a data aggregator called National Public Data, so it probably originated in many other places and contains a variety of different information depending on the source. So it includes SSNs for some people, but not every record is necessarily connected to a SSN.
But 2.9B is a number so high that the only way it can be true is that they got some Facebook data or the method they used for scraping data led to A LOT of duplicates
I was wondering this, too. A nine-digit number can only represent 1 billion unique values. Even if you consider Employer Identification Numbers too that wouldn't add up. Probably they mean ID #s from other tax-ID systems in non-US countries, or some equivalent identifier. Maybe pooled with driver's ID numbers? I only have guesses.
They are claiming this is from a data aggregator called National Public Data, so it probably originated in many other places and contains a variety of different information depending on the source. So it includes SSNs for some people, but not every record is necessarily connected to a SSN.
"data including SSNs"
But 2.9B is a number so high that the only way it can be true is that they got some Facebook data or the method they used for scraping data led to A LOT of duplicates
I was wondering this, too. A nine-digit number can only represent 1 billion unique values. Even if you consider Employer Identification Numbers too that wouldn't add up. Probably they mean ID #s from other tax-ID systems in non-US countries, or some equivalent identifier. Maybe pooled with driver's ID numbers? I only have guesses.
The plural used implies that at least 2 people had their full name and SSNs exposed. The horror!