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Clerical problems reporting false deaths

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'I don't think most Americans are aware that the most private information is available directly from the government,' said Carmen Balber, Washington director for the nonprofit group Consumer Watchdog.

Thomas Hargrove / SHNS

"I don't think most Americans are aware that the most private information is available directly from the government," said Carmen Balber, Washington director for the nonprofit group Consumer Watchdog.

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  • 'I don't think most Americans are aware that the most private information is available directly from the government,' said Carmen Balber, Washington director for the nonprofit group Consumer Watchdog.
  • Beth Givens, executive director of the San Diego-based Privacy Rights Clearinghouse, has been aware of problems with the Death Master File for years. 'We've heard of people's bank accounts being closed, their Medicare benefits being cancelled, their credit cards cancelled. The consequences for individuals can be quite severe,' she said.
  • From its first days in 1937, the Social Security Administration faced an enormous challenge tracking millions of Americans. Here, an unnamed federal worker monitors issuance of employee master cards. 'Chances of a mechanical error escaping detection are infinitesimal in the Social Security Board Records Office and great care is exercised to guard against human error,' the Social Security Administration assured when releasing this photo.
  • Judy Rivers of Jasper, Ala., reviews the voluminous paperwork generated in her quest to rejoin the living. 'I started sending letters to different credit card companies requesting credit information. I got 14 responses back saying the credit was denied. All of them said basically the same thing: 'The Social Security number cannot be confirmed' or 'Social Security number deactivated due to death,' ' she said.
  • Social Security Administration workers, shown at Baltimore headquarters in 1937, produced thousands of 'employee master cards' that allowed the federal government to begin tracking millions of Americans. Officials assured the public that chances of error were 'infinitesimal.'
  • 'I am still dead. When this information gets into the financial system, it's like an octopus with tentacles. It goes everywhere,' said Judy Rivers of Jasper, Ala. She's been detained by police, refused credit cards 14 times and denied bank loans for college and to refinance her home. 'I hate to give out that Social Security number because I know exactly what is going to happen.'
  • The Social Security Board in 1937 had Arthur Altmeyer, seated at center, as its chairman. Its first regulation mandated privacy protections for Social Security records. A 2008 inspector general's audit found the Social Security Administration violates this rule every time a living American is placed on the Death Master File.

The Social Security Administration each month falsely reports that nearly 1,200 living Americans have died. These clerical errors, found in a federal database ominously titled the 'Death Master File,' might be darkly humorous — evoking Mark Twain's famous quip that death reports can be greatly exaggerated — were not the consequences so severe.

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