The Social Security Death Index (often called the SSDI) is a valuable tool for genealogists. It lists deceased people within the United States. When first created, the SSDI only listed those people who were receiving Social Security benefit payments at the time of death. However, as the years went by, the database was expanded to include ALMOST ALL DEATHS, whether receiving benefits or not. The Social Security Administration (SSA) Death Master File (DMF) contains more than 80 million records of deaths that have been reported to SSA. This file includes the following information on each deceased person, as applicable: name, date of birth, date of death, state or country of residence (prior to Mar 1988), and ZIP code of last residence.
Due to false concerns over identity theft, the Social Security Administration stopped releasing updates to the SSDI a few years ago. A few web sites that previously had made the SSDI available online have since deleted the records from their web sites.
Now many genealogists believe the SSDI is no longer available. The SSDI hasn’t been “lost.” It is still available in several places today, and you can search it online. In fact, the Social Security Administration has stopped issuing UPDATES to the Death Master File. However, the original database, current through January 2011, remains in the public domain and is still available online from a number of web sites. Some web sites have updated their records from 2011 through 2012. Death records for the past three years are not available.
NOTE #1: Genealogists have always referred to this database of deceased persons as the “SSDI.” However, employees of the Social Security Administration and many others call it the Death Master File, or DMF. The reason for the discrepancy in names appears to be confusion with another service of the Social Security Administration. If you mention “the SSDI” to an employee of the Social Security Administration, he or she will probably think you are referring to Social Security Disability Insurance, something that is unrelated to the Death Master File except that both are available from the Social Security Administration.
When talking with non-genealogists, you probably should always refer to this database as the “Death Master File.” NOTE #2: In most cases, only the first ten letters of each individual’s first name are shown in the SSDI. For instance, the name “Christopher” is abbreviated as “Christophe”.
Also, middle initials are shown, but complete middle names are not recorded in the database. The search rules will vary from one web site to another. I find it best to only enter the first ten letters of longer names.
That seems to always work. Entering all the letters of first names with more than ten letters sometimes results in a “not found” error on some web sites although not on others. When in doubt, use only ten letters. NOTE #3: Not all the online databases will display all the available information about the person listed in the SSDI. You may have to try several online services in order to find what you seek. NOTE #4: Information about geographic allocation of Social Security numbers can be found.
Keep in mind that Social Security Numbers used to be assigned by the location where the Number was ISSUED, not by the place of birth of the individual. — Are we unable to get information for deaths occurring after 2011 in any other way from the SSA? There is no way that I know of unless you are an heir of the deceased. You can thank your members of Congress for that. They stopped the access because they thought someone might commit identity theft using a deceased person’s Social Security Number.
Our elected officials ignored the fact that a better and more effective solution would be to publicize and make instantly available the Social Security Numbers of deceased individuals to EVERYONE, including loan officers, credit card companies, banks, credit unions, tax preparers, and more. Every application for credit or money should be INSTANTLY checked for Social Security Numbers of deceased individuals BEFORE being processed. These financial organizations already check claimants’ credit ratings Why not the Social Security Numbers? Per ancestry’s info about the SSDI: “Going forward, records from the most recent 3 year period will not be available to Ancestry.com. Once a record is older than 3 years (1095 days), it can be published.” “Why can’t I see the Social Security Number?
If the Social Security Number is not visible on the record index it is because Ancestry.com does not provide this number in the Social Security Death Index for any person that has passed away within the past 10 years.” I personally don’t see where a three year delay in reporting deaths is that big a deal. Also, ancestry now makes available info that was in the original Social Security apps, which often has birth info and parents info and other details.
FamilySearch.org states (at ), “Records for the most recent 3 years are not available.” Ancestry.com states (at ), “Going forward, records from the most recent 3 year period will not be available to Ancestry.com.” That means that new records have not been added since 2013. HOWEVER, corrections to older records are still issued weekly and monthly by the Social Security Administration.
The newer records are not included, however. In theory, records that are three years old or older should be in the latest updates. However, not all web sites are updating their records regularly. As a result, the dates available are going to vary from one web site to another and none of them have records for the past three years as the Social Security Administration cannot legally release the last three years’ records.
Access to the Death Master File is restricted and requires all users to be certified. For instructions regarding the certification form, please. All questions and concerns regarding the certification form, should be directed to NTIS at or 1-800-363-2068. The Limited Access DMF (DMF) from the Social Security Administration (SSA) contains over 86 million records created from SSA payment records. This file includes the following information on each decedent, if the data are available to the SSA: social security number, name, date of birth, date of death. The SSA does not have a death record for all persons; therefore, SSA does not guarantee the veracity of the file.
Thus, the absence of a particular person is not proof this person is alive. By methodically running financial, credit, payment and other applications against the Limited Access DMF, the financial community, insurance companies, security firms and state and local governments are better able to identify and prevent identity fraud. The USA Patriot Act (Uniting and Strengthening America by Providing Appropriate Tools Required to Intercept and Obstruct Terrorism Act of 2001), requires an effort to verify the identity of customers, including procedures to verify customer identity and maintaining records of information used to verify identity. A user may now access an online search application or maintain a raw data version of the file. The online service is updated weekly and the weekly and monthly updates are offered electronically via https, reducing handling and production time.
The Limited Access DMF, available as an online search application or as raw data files, is important for death verification. Medical researchers, hospitals, oncology programs all need to track former patients and study subjects. Investigative firms use the data to verify the death of persons, in the course of their investigations. Pension funds, insurance organizations, Federal, State and Local governments and others responsible for payments to recipients/retirees all need to know if they might be sending checks to deceased persons. Individuals may search for loved ones, or work toward growing their family trees. Professional and amateur genealogists can search for missing links. Contact your local SSA office at: 800-772-1213 or if you have questions about a specific death record, if you have found an error in a particular record, or if you cannot find a record that you feel certain should be contained in the database.
Please DO NOT contact GIM or NTIS with questions or issues pertaining to individual records as we will not be able to help you; GIM and NTIS have no control over the content of the DMF. If you discover an error, you should contact your local Social Security office to make a correction. Contact NTIS at: 800-363-2068 or if you have subscription, account, and/or billing questions.
You may also if you wish to place an order by mail or fax. Contact GIM at: 800-538-3539 or if you need technical support; if you have questions about using your account; or if you need help using the website. Please consult the before contacting GIM.
Background Determination of mortality status is an important part of epidemiological studies and many clinical research investigations. Internet sites, such as the Social Security Death Index (SSDI) based on the Social Security Administration (SSA) Death Master File (DMF), are available to researchers for this purpose. The SSA DMF is a database available to the public containing death notices for enrollees in the U.S. Social Security program. This free service is available on the World Wide Web and is updated monthly. The use of databases for ascertainment of mortality status in epidemiological research is common practice. Many prospective cohort studies evaluate the relation between baseline risk factors and total mortality; by means of linking baseline records with databases the mortality status of study participants can be ascertained.
For example, Gragoudas et al. developed risk score equations to estimate probabilities of death based on an analysis of 2069 patients treated with proton beam radiation for intraocular melanoma and linked to the National Death Index (NDI), a computerized index of death records maintained by the National Center of Health Statistics for research purposes, and the SSA DMF. Previous reports have shown the sensitivity of Internet sources for death ascertainment as high as 97.5% among males but as low as 31.1% among females using the NDI as gold standard. The purpose of this paper is to analyze the ability of Internet sites based upon the SSA Death Master File to determine mortality status as a function of gender, ethnic background and additional demographic variables among 374 confirmed decedents. Patient population For the present study we selected 374 consecutive patients followed up between January 1993 and January 2001 from a population involved in the Myocardial Perfusion Imaging/Patient Outcome (MPI/PO) Study at Cedars-Sinai Medical Center (CSMC), a large hospital in Los Angeles, California, whose deaths occurred at CSMC. Date and cause of death were confirmed by physician review.
![]()
All demographic information, including name, social security number, place of birth, ethnic group and date of birth, was taken from the hospital admission information. Internet sources of vital status Internet sites such as provide free access to the SSA Death Master File, maintained by the Social Security Administration.
The Death Master File contained 65,445,243 records of decedents with social security numbers whose deaths were reported to the SSA and was current through January 2001 at the time of this study. Search tools such as the Social Security Death Index (SSDI) available as a free service on the Internet contain information fields for social security number, surname, given name, date of death, date of birth, last known residence, location of last benefit, and date and place of issuance.
The database is not downloadable, however, software to allow for multiple searches can be easily implemented using packages such as JAVA. Searches can be conducted with any one field or a combination of fields. For this study we used date of birth, social security number and/or first and last name.
Searches were conducted individually and without use of a data matching software package. We considered positive identification for records with exact matches of name, social security number, and dates of death and birth as well as for inexact matches of name with exact match of social security number and/or dates of birth and death ,. Statistical methods Continuous variables are expressed as mean value (standard deviation). The mean differences for continuous variables were compared by t-test (2-tailed).
Categorical values are expressed as percentage (standard deviation) and compared using chi-square statistics. Sensitivity and 95% confidence intervals (CI) were estimated. Analysis of variance was performed to estimate adjusted means. Age was divided in four categories based on distribution quartiles.
Logistic regression was used to identify the variables that best predict positive detection by the Internet mortality database. Comparison of characteristics of study participants from the MPI/PO Study by Identification Status on the SSA DMF. The sensitivity of the Internet accessed SSA Death Master File as a function of gender and place of birth is displayed in Table. Sensitivity for American-born males, 91.49 percent (95 percent confidence interval: 86.9, 96.1) and females, 93.3 percent (95 percent confidence interval: 88.1, 98.5) is similar. The sensitivity for foreign-born decedents is substantially lower. For foreign-born males it drops to 83.7 percent (95 percent confidence interval: 76.4, 91.0) and for foreign-born females to 77.8 percent (95 percent confidence interval: 65.6, 89.9).
Sensitivity and 95% confidence intervals (CI) for the SSA DMF in determination of mortality status of decedents from the MPI/PO Study by quartiles of age at death. The results of logistic regression are seen in Table. Foreign-born decedents had 67% lower odds of being found by the Internet mortality database than American-born counterparts. Decedents in the first age quartile had approximately 85% lower odds of being found than the fourth age quartile.
African American decedents had 68% lower odds of being found than were Caucasian decedents ( p = 0.07). We did not observe statistically significant odds ratios for reaching retirement age (i.e. Age 62), gender, or marital status. Discussion In our study, the internet source of information from the SSA Death Master File demonstrated high and consistent sensitivity for detecting mortality status of both American-born men and women.
The sensitivity for American-born decedents was 92.2%, comparable to documented sensitivity for the National Death Index, 87–98% ,-. However, in foreign-born individuals there is a nearly 10% reduction in sensitivity. The results also suggest that African Americans may have odds as high as 68% of being excluded from Internet databases.
Moreover, in our study the odds of sources of the SSA Death Master File finding the youngest decedents were 87% lower than that for the oldest decedents. The SSA Death Master File is comprised of decedents with social security numbers whose deaths were reported to the Social Security Administration.
The SSA reports that in most cases a report of death was made in connection with a claim for Social Security death benefits. In some cases, it is reported to stop Social Security Benefits to the deceased. The primary sources of information utilized for the SSA DMF are relatives of deceased individuals, funeral directors, financial institutions, postal services, as well as other government agencies. Thus the reasons for exclusion from the SSDI include not having a social security number and not having the death reported to the SSA ,. The SSA was originally founded by an act of Congress in 1935 as a retirement program. In 1972 the SSA was required to issue social security numbers (SSNs) to all legally admitted aliens at entry; SSNs are assigned to all persons authorized to work in the US who request them, including newborns.
SSNs are required for tax purposes, to get medical coverage or apply for government services. As a result, most Americans and legal aliens have SSNs ,. A recent study compared the SSDI to the NDI using the NDI as the 'gold standard' and demonstrated a high sensitivity among men (94.7%), but much lower among women (31.1%) using the first and last name search fields. Our study employed social security number as the primary search field and name as secondary. We found an overall sensitivity of 88.3% for men and 88.1% for women, using confirmed mortality as our 'gold standard'. We believe one source of this discrepancy to be related to the disproportionate frequency of name changes in women. Having information on social security number has been shown to greatly improve sensitivity, as well as specificity, for sources of mortality , possibly by reducing the impact of inexact matches of name (e.g.
Nicknames, misspelling) ,. Investigators using this information have had similar findings among some demographic groups ,. While the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act (HIPAA) places certain restrictions on personal information available to researchers, identifiers such as social security number are frequently accessible for studies. We found that foreign-born decedents had 67% lower odds of being identified by the internet-accessed SSA Death Master File than American-born individuals. A possible explanation for the differential misclassification is related to the eligibility criteria defined by the SSA for receiving death benefits. Foreign nationals and naturalized citizens may have less opportunity to achieve the necessary 40 quarters (10 years) of work in the US to qualify for benefits and thus reduced incentive to report deaths to the SSA. Foreign-born decedents comprised 38% of our study population.
Census Bureau recently determined that 10.4% of the American population was foreign-born as of March 2000. Immigrant proportions were highest in major urban areas, with Los Angeles, New York City, and San Francisco accountable for the majority of such individuals. Age at death was another determining factor on identification by the SSDI in our study. Older decedents were significantly more likely to be identified as dead, similar to previous reports ,. In general, as with immigrants who have not had sufficient opportunity to work the necessary 10 years, younger aged decedents are less likely to have achieved qualification for benefits. In this study, the first age quartile ranged from 41–70; it is unlikely to have greatly affected ability to qualify for benefits.
We found a significant increase in sensitivity only for decedents older than 85 years at death; sensitivity was approximately 85% for the first 3 quartiles. We also found a significant reduction in sensitivity for determining mortality status of African American decedents. Previous studies have reported difficulties in ascertainment of mortality status in African Americans using databases of such information ,. However, these results should be looked at with caution because of the small sample size of African Americans on which they are based. Our study suggests that the use of the SSDI as the sole source for verification of mortality status might have detrimental effects in research findings if misclassification of mortality status is not accounted for in the analysis.
Ssn Death Master File Free
Differential misclassification of mortality status can lead to under/over – estimation of prevalence of outcomes and undesired bias on risk estimates of exposures of interest and their variances. As shown on this paper, this is especially the case, if the exposures of interest are, or related to age, gender, country of birth or race. Correction methods for bias due to misclassification are available in the literature -. The matrix method described by Greenland et al.
is one alternative to correct odds ratios for misclassification for 2 × 2 tables. Magder et al. showed that when the sensitivity and specificity of a diagnostic test are assumed to be known or can be estimated, this information can be incorporated into the fitting of logistic regression models to estimate risk. They also described an EM algorithm that produces unbiased estimates of the odds ratios and their variances. This study is limited in its generalizability; the patient population is entirely composed of patients seen for potential heart problems in the Nuclear Cardiology department who agreed to be part of an observational follow-up study. Additionally, while the number of decedents studied is similar to that of similar studies, it is still too low for the analysis of certain subgroups. However, despite the use of the convenience sample for this study, we have no reason to suspect that estimates of overall sensitivity or sensitivity as a function of study variables would be grossly different than population values.
Regardless, we encourage application of sensitivity analysis techniques to evaluate different levels of uncertainty with respect to bias. Though we have demonstrated the sensitivity of the SSDI using confirmed decedents, we have not attained similar information for other databases of mortality status, such as the NDI. We have not presented information regarding the specificity of the Internet accessed SSA Death Master File, however, our experience agrees with previous studies that have shown it to be nearly 100% ,. It should be noted that our sole source of demographic information is the hospital admission records.
Findings could reflect variance in accuracy as a function of our study variables. However, such information is frequently all that is available to investigators. Conclusions Internet sources provide accurate information for determination of mortality status and may be accessed using the web quickly and inexpensively. The SSA Master Death File from which Internet sources are generated is updated monthly, thus making it particularly useful for researchers conducting prospective studies with mortality as an endpoint. While gender and marital status have no effect on the sensitivity of SSA Master Death File in our sample, other demographic factors do.
There are significant decreases in accuracy among foreign-born decedents, especially women, as well as among African-Americans. For study populations composed largely of these groups, as urban study samples are likely to be, the SSDI may be less effective for determining mortality. Investigators conducting prospective studies should note this as well as the importance of correct information concerning social security number ,. For studies without this information other sources of mortality information should be consulted. Social Security Death Index. ancestry com/search/rectype/ vital/ssdi/main htm 2003. Gragoudas Evangelos, Li Wenjun, Goitein Michael, Lane Anne Marie, Munzenrider John E., Egan Kathleen M.
Evidence-Based Estimates of Outcome in Patients Irradiated for Intraocular Melanoma. Arch Ophthalmol. 2002; 120:1665–1671. Sesso HD, Paffenbarger RS, Lee IM. Comparison of National Death Index and World Wide Web death searches.
Am J Epidemiol. 2000; 152:107–11. Doi: 10.1093/aje/152.2.107. Porter Pamela Boyer. Social Security Sleuthing. Richmond, VA, National Geneological Society; 1999. Social Security Administration.
Boyle CA, Decoufle P. National sources of vital status information: extent of coverage and possible selectivity in reporting see comments Am J Epidemiol. 1990; 131:160–8. Calle EE, Terrell DD. Utility of the National Death Index for ascertainment of mortality among cancer prevention study II participants. Am J Epidemiol. 1993; 137:235–41.
Curb JD, Ford CE, Pressel S, Palmer M, Babcock C, Hawkins CM. Ascertainment of vital status through the National Death Index and the Social Security Administration.
Am J Epidemiol. 1985; 121:754–66. Hill ME, Rosenwaike I. The Social Security Administration's Death Master File: the completeness of death reporting at older ages. Soc Secur Bull. 2002; 64:45–51.
Porter PB. Social Security Sleuthing. Richmond, VA, National Geneological Society; 2003. Social Security Administration 1. Ssa gov/history/hfaq html. Social Security Administration 2.
Ssa gov/history/ssn/ssnchron html. Williams BC, Demitrack LB, Fries BE. The accuracy of the National Death Index when personal identifiers other than Social Security number are used.
American Journal of Public Health. 1992; 82:1145–7. Hill ME. Re: 'Comparison of National Death Index and world wide web death searches.
Am J Epidemiol. 2001; 153:719. Doi: 10.1093/aje/153.7.719. Lash TL, Silliman RA. A comparison of the National Death Index and Social Security Administration databases to ascertain vital status.
2001; 12:259–261. Doi: 10.108-20011.
Wentworth DN, Neaton JD, Rasmussen WL. An evaluation of the Social Security Administration master beneficiary record file and the National Death Index in the ascertainment of vital status. American Journal of Public Health. 1983; 73:1270–4.
Department of Health and Human Resources: HIPPA. Hhs gov/ocr/hipaa/ 2003. Profile of the Foreign-born Population in the United States. US Census Bureau.
Cowper DC, Kubal JD, Maynard C, Hynes DM. A primer and comparative review of major US mortality databases.
Ann Epidemiol. 2002; 12:462–468.
Doi: 10.1016/S1047-275-X. Page WF, Braun MM, Caporaso NE. Ascertainment of mortality in the US veteran population: World War II veteran twins. 1995; 160:351–355. Acquavella JF, Donaleski D, Hanis NM.
An analysis of mortality follow-up through the National Death Index for a cohort of refinery and petrochemical workers. American Journal of Industrial Medicine.
1986; 9:181–7. Brenner H, Savitz DA, Jockel KH, Greenland S. Effects of nondifferential exposure misclassification in ecologic studies 8. Am J Epidemiol. 1992; 135:85–95.
Copeland KT, Checkoway H, McMichael AJ, Holbrook RH. Bias due to misclassification in the estimation of relative risk 18. Am J Epidemiol. 1977; 105:488–495. Greenland S. The effect of misclassification in the presence of covariates 16. Am J Epidemiol.
1980; 112:564–569. Greenland S, Kleinbaum DG. Correcting for misclassification in two-way tables and matched-pair studies 14. Int J Epidemiol. 1983; 12:93–97. Magner LS, Hughes JP.
Logistic regression when the outcome is measured with uncertainty. Am J Epidemiol. 1997; 146:195–203. Hauser TH, Ho KK.
Social Security Death Master File Download
Accuracy of on-line databases in determining vital status. J Clin Epidemiol. 2001; 54:1267–1270. Doi: 10.1016/S0895-431-8.
The Social Security Death Index (SSDI) is the commercial name for the Death Master File (DMF) created by the United States Social Security Administration. The DMF was first created in 1980 and contains every person with a Social Security number who has been reported dead to the Social Security Administration from 1962 onwards or who had died prior to 1962 but still had active Social Security accounts in 1962. Each record in this index will provide you with a transcript of key information:.
First name(s). Last name.
Birth year. Birth date. Death year.
Death date. Social Security number. Place of issue (of Social Security number). State.
Social Security numbers are assigned to citizens, permanent residents, and employed temporary residents of the United States. The Social Security Administration issues these numbers for the purpose of tracking individual Social Security and, secondary, for identification regarding taxation, employment, and other services.
The New Deal Social Security program introduced the first Social Security numbers in November 1935. The New Deal was the result of the Great Depression and the creation of Social Security was intended to provide for older citizens, as the United States had no national insurance system in place at that time. The program differed fundamentally in scope from other New Deal programs, which were intended to last for less than a decade. The Social Security Act, however, introduced a permanent system, funded by payroll taxes and formed the basis for the welfare system in the United States, designed to provide aid for older citizens, needy minors, the unemployed, and the handicapped. As you search through this index, it’s important to keep in mind that the policies and practices of issuing Social Security numbers have evolved over the years. Prior to 1986, it was common for individuals to receive Social Security numbers around age 14 as they were primarily used for tracking income. It wasn’t until the Tax Reform Act of 1986 that parents and guardians were required to list the Social Security numbers of any dependents over the age of five who they were claiming on their taxes.
![]()
The age was lowered to two in 1988 and to one in 1990. Today, parents usually apply for Social Security numbers for their children on the same form used to apply for their birth certificates. If you have military ancestors, it may be useful to know that Social Security numbers were used as identification numbers for members of. The Army and Air Force from 1 July 1969. The Navy and Marine Corps from 1 January 1972. The Coast Guard from 1 October 1974 This practice ended in June 2011. Since the start of the Social Security program, over 450 million Social Security numbers have been issued.
The Social Security Administration does not reuse numbers and has said it has enough remaining numbers to last several generations without the need to reuse or change the makeup of the Social Security numbers. As you start your research, however, it should be noted that there have been incidents of more than one person being accidentally assigned the same Social Security number. The makeup of Social Security numbers The first three numbers, the area number, are determined by geographical region of the local Social Security office where it was issued, prior to 1973. This does not mean that the individual lived in the place where the card was issued as, at that time, you could apply for a card at any local Social Security office. Starting in 1973, however, all numbers are issued out of Baltimore and the area number correlates to the applicant’s mailing address ZIP code.
Please note that the mailing address does not have to match the place of residence. The middle two numbers represent the group number, which range from 01 to 99. Group numbers are not assigned consecutively but instead are assigned in this order:.
Odd numbers from 01 to 09. Even numbers from 10 to 98. Even number from 02 to 08. Odd number from 11 to 99 The final four digits are the serial numbers: a straight numerical sequence from 0001 to 9999 within a group. You can find many notable individuals in this death index.
Ronald Reagan Ronald Reagan was the 40th president of the United States. From the index, we see that he was born on 6 February 1911, died on 5 June 2004, and had his Social Security number issued in Iowa. John Steinbeck The iconic American author John Steinbeck is recorded in this index. His birth was recorded as 27 February 1902 and his death as taking place in December 1968. His Social Security number was issued in New York, which is also the state in which he died. Cary Grant Cary Grant, star of Charade and North by Northwest, can be found in the Social Security Death Index.
Born on 18 January 1904 and died in November 1986. His Social Security number was issued in the state of California.
Katharine Hepburn The incomparable Katharine Hepburn who starred in such films as Bringing Up Baby, The Philadelphia Story, and The Lion in Winter is recorded in the index as having been born on 12 May 1907. It further notes that she died on 29 June 2003 and that her Social Security number was issued in New York.
To help cut down on fraud, Congress is limiting access to the Social Security Administration's data about people who die in the United States each year. IStockphoto The 'Death Master File.'
It sounds like a ledger the Grim Reaper might keep, but in reality, it's a computerized list containing some 86 million names and other data kept by the Social Security Administration. An obscure provision tucked into the budget deal that Congress approved last month would limit access to the list — and that has everyone from genealogists to bankers concerned. When someone dies, that person's Social Security number, name and dates of birth and death are passed on to Social Security by funeral homes, hospitals and families.
The administration uses the information to make sure checks don't go out to the deceased and that survivors get the benefits they're entitled to. In 1980, a court ruling ordered the government to make the death master file, or DMF, publicly available. Now, anyone who pays the price can get access to all or part of the file — and that has unfortunately led to cases of fraud. Last month on Capitol Hill, Sen. Bill Nelson, a Democrat from Florida, cited the ordeal the parents of a young girl went through after she died of cancer weeks before her fifth birthday. 'You can imagine how they'd felt when months later they learned that someone had used Alexis' identity, obtained from the death master file, to file a fraudulent tax return,' he said.
Congress estimates that limiting access to the death master file could save taxpayers more than $700 million in fraudulent tax refunds over 10 years. So last month, lawmakers clamped down on the DMF. Now, only those who are certified can see the information. That has librarians, genealogists, genetic scientists and other researchers who currently use the data more than a little worried — people like Gary Chase, who runs the Nurses' Health Study at Harvard. Java mobile games. The survey has tracked the health and death of some 250,000 nurses for more than three decades.
'If we follow women for all these years and we don't find out what happens to them at the end, it's like reading a long novel and you leave off the last couple of pages,' Chase says. 'We really want to know what happens in those last couple of pages.' And it's not just researchers and scientists who use the data in the DMF. Big corporations do, too. Stuart Pratt, president and CEO of the Consumer Data Industry Association, a Washington trade group, says keeping track of who dies is a big deal for a lot of companies.
'That's important for financial institutions to know, because there's forms of identity theft that are associated with individuals who are deceased,' he says. 'Identity thieves will sometimes scour obituaries and try to get information and try to open up accounts, even though an individual has recently died. 'Pension benefits groups need access to the information, life insurance companies. So there's a lot of very positive uses of the data.' Congress didn't entirely close off access to the DMF. It left it up to the Commerce Department, which administers the death file, to come up with a process to certify legitimate users. Pratt says his group will be closely watching the process.
'If the exceptions are interpreted too narrowly, it will actually have a harmful effect,' he says. The government has three months to come up with the certification process. Legitimate users worry that after that, it will be more difficult to find out everything — from where your great-grandfather was born to what diseases you might be at risk for because of your DNA.
Comments are closed.
|
AuthorWrite something about yourself. No need to be fancy, just an overview. ArchivesCategories |