Creditworthy (Columbia Studies in the History of U.S. Capitalism) by Josh Lauer & Josh Lauer

Author:Josh Lauer & Josh Lauer [Lauer, Josh]
Language: eng
Format: azw3
Publisher: Columbia University Press
Published: 2017-07-24T16:00:00+00:00

A sample Credit Data Corporation credit report. CDC’s computerized reports exemplified the movement toward quantitative clarity, including the use of social security numbers as personal identifiers. (Robert Morris Associates Bulletin, August 1966)

Despite such differences, early computerized credit bureaus all faced one common problem: how to identify an individual. As retailers and credit grantors across the nation automated their recordkeeping, each adopted its own unique system of customer identification, typically an alphanumeric code.72 Such numbers were nothing new, but the growth in the numbers and mobility of postwar Americans made traditional systems of identification—name and address—increasingly impractical and unreliable. Some “universal numbering system” was “sorely needed,” CDC’s founder lamented. “For the purposes of personal identification, a worse system than name and address would be difficult to devise.”73 In a nation with “1.9 million Smiths and 1.5 million Johnsons,” mistaken identity had become a serious liability. After all, “Mrs. William H. Smith will be unhappy if the dress she ordered gets delivered to Mrs. W. Henry Smith, and Mrs. Will H. Smith will be even more unhappy if she receives the bill.”74 This small recordkeeping matter became a major problem when the computerized ledger data of each subscriber was merged with the bureau’s master files. “You can’t just store in a computer all of the different types of J. C. Penney’s account numbers, Sears, Sanger’s, Neiman’s and on down the pike. Somehow, you have got to come up with one number.”75

In the call for a universal identification number, the obvious candidate was the Social Security number. Its use among federal agencies was already expanding during the early 1960s, and no rules prohibited its use outside of government. The ACB of A’s form No. 100 included space for the subject’s Social Security number (as well as that of his or her spouse), and CDC recorded Social Security numbers as “secondary identifiers.” The legitimacy of the Social Security number in the commercial sphere was all but certified in 1968 when the American Bankers Association recommended its use as “a nationwide personal identification system” among its members.76 Months later, a banking journal noted that credit bureaus were requesting Social Security numbers from credit applicants, as this was “the best universal identifier currently available.”77

By the early 1970s, the head of Chilton’s computerized Dallas bureau envisioned the Social Security number as the magic key to financial identity: “Imagine if all our customers had computer terminals.… A person walks in and says, ‘Here is my social security number. I would like an account with you.’ They pick up the telephone and punch in the social security number and back comes the code.”78 Financial identity thus acquired its magic key, and American consumers were literally reduced to numbers.

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