Humble beginnings

A letter arrived today from Thrift Savings Program, which is the pretax savings plan for Uncle Sugar's military. I needed to sit down after reading:

We will no longer use your Social Security number as your primary identifier . . .

Humble beginnings. It's not without its bugs, of course:

. . . if you talk to our call center representatives, they may ask you for your Social Security number as added protection.

They'll still rely on the SSN as a password---verification of identification---but not as identification itself. It's not what I was hoping for, not what servicemen (and all taxpayers) deserve, but for the FedGov this is a huge step.

More of this, please, and more boldly.