Social Security Number Update

As discussed earlier this month we have decided to take a sample of a small group of documents to determine how many contain social security numbers. The work began this morning. One employee has been assigned the task of reviewing record books from January 1, 1995 to June 30, 1995. This span, books "7353-7540" contains 187 books. The “Book, Page and Document Type” of records that contain social security numbers are being recorded on a spreadsheet to be analyzed later. Since each “page” of a book must be checked it will probably take a considerable amount of time to complete the test sample. It is a tedious process, but we have learned that large projects, which seemed insurmountable in the beginning, are managed with diligence. It is expected that the vast majority of these documents will be Massachusetts and Federal tax documents. This information will help us determine if we are dealing with hundreds or thousands of documents containing Social Security numbers. It is worth repeating that effective July 1, 2005 no document containing a social security number will be accepted for recording.