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Ohio to Remove Social Security Numbers from Pay Stubs
COLUMBUS, Ohio -- Ohio Auditor of State Betty Montgomery is taking steps to further protect millions of Ohioans from identity theft. Montgomery and Ohio Department of Administrative Services Director Scott Johnson are jointly removing Social Security numbers from the pay stubs of more than 60,000 state employees starting Aug. 20. The Social Security numbers are being replaced with an alpha-numeric employee identification code."It is no secret -- Social Security numbers are a prime target of identity theft because they are the key to bank accounts, credit cards, and other vital personal information," Montgomery points out.The Auditor of State is responsible for issuing more than seven million warrants (or checks) on behalf of state government every year."Employee Identification Numbers will protect state employees from the increasing risk of identity theft," Johnson says. "The use of Employee Identification Numbers also will benefit state employees in a number of other ways, such as: processing employee name changes, enrolling employees for state health care benefits, and registering employees for state sponsored training programs. DAS will confidentially maintain state employee Social Security numbers for wage and tax reporting purposes as we always have."Along with removing Social Security numbers from state employee pay stubs, personal information will be removed from other financial documents issued by the state auditor's office, including:Social Security numbers from more than three million State of Ohio personal income tax refund checks starting in January 2005.Social Security numbers and bank account routing information from more than 500,000 electronic fund transfer statements issued every year. These documents record reimbursments made to Medicaid providers, vendor payments, and reimbursements made to state employees."