Activate your new iPhone at home- with social security number

Apple and AT&T today confirmed you can activate your new iPhone at home through the iTunes Music Store.  This will avoid long delays at the retail stores on June 29th for sure but the devil is in the details as usual.  You will need an active iTunes Music Store account with a valid credit card on file (no surprise about that) but even worse AT&T is requiring a social security number for the phone account.  So your iPhone will cause you to turn over very sensitive personal information to the iTunes Music Store to get online.  I feel some bad vibes about this, especially the SSN part.

Comments

[Oliver]

As much as I hate it, I think it's fairly common for carriers to ask you for the SSN when you sign up for a contract. For some reason they feel that it's not enough "protection" for them that you give them a credit card number. Hertz and Avis have no such problem when they give me a $25,000+ vehicle :(

[Sumocat]

I don't have a problem with the SSN, since that is normal for a credit check. My problem is with the credit check. At home activation is cool (and it seems we both saw that coming), but there will be a few people getting screwed when they fail the credit check. That's a hole in the system I think Apple wanted to avoid, but AT&T apparently isn't content with a five-year deal to be the only provider of phone service to iPhone users. Seriously, why do they need to lock individuals in for two years when they have the whole user base locked in for five years? So short-sighted.

[ThoughtFix]

It's against the law for any company to REQUIRE your social security number if they are not providing you with taxable income.

http://www.privacyrights.org/fs/fs10-ssn.htm#4

[Ryan]

ThoughtFix, I was just about to say the same thing... It's funny seeing your comment here, I just discovered your blog yesterday because of Woot. I'll be spending a lot more time there now if you catch my meaning. ;-)