7 thoughts on “Privacy Risks for Expats are Real”

1. Why didn’t they just ask?  I would have gladly given over mine.

2. I seem to recall that our fellow expat, Peg, mentioned prior to receiving her CLN, that she knew it had been approved because her SSN had shown as invalid on some communication with the IRS.

   If true, at least expats with CLN’s may be safe.   ???

3. The “President” has a SSN issued from Conneticut where he never lived.  The entire SS system is a massive fraud anyway.

   This article has some somewhat related information:

   IRS: The Small Business Bully

   In 2009, the federal stimulus provided for an additional $1,000 per child tax credit for low-income Americans. The law prohibits aliens residing without authorization in the United States from receiving most federal public benefits. However, those who can’t obtain a Social
   Security number can obtain an Individual Taxpayer Identification Number (ITIN) number. When the IRS was flooded with applications from ITIN-number holders for tax credit checks, senior managers purposely discouraged IRS employees from scrutinizing the requests.

   According to a July 2012 report by the TIGTA, “ IRS management created an environment which discourages tax examiners responsible for reviewing ITIN applications from identifying questionable applications; eliminated successful processes used to identify questionable ITIN application fraud patterns and schemes; and established processes and procedures that are
   inadequate to verify each applicant’s identity and foreign status.”

   For example, the review found 154 individual mailing addresses were
   used 1,000 or more times on an ITIN application, but the IRS failed to use information in its computer systems to identify potential fraud schemes. Robust fraud controls are extremely important since $6.8 billion in tax refunds were paid out to 2.9 million ITIN tax returns for processing year 2011.

   Another report by the TIGTA in July of 2011 found that individuals using ITINs made claims for $4.2 billion in Additional Child Tax Credit (ACTC) funds, a four-fold increase from the $924 million submitted in 2005.

   Tax collections and enforcement can be just as redistributive as tax
   rates. As the numbers show, the IRS is increasingly placing job creators under the auditing hatchet while shirking oversight of the billions in new tax credits flowing to those claiming low-income status.

   Put simply, the Internal Revenue Service is morphing into the Internal Redistribution Service. 

   So the IRS is deliberately abetting fraud to the benefit of illegals and minorities of color while deliberately persecuting white-flight expats. Nothing to see here, slave.

4. Major Greek daily reprints Swiss accounts list

   A major Greek newspaper reprinted the names of more than 2,000 wealthy Greeks with Swiss bank accounts on Monday and the editor who first published the list was to go on trial for violating data privacy laws.

   Ta Nea devoted 10 pages to the list of accounts said to hold some 2 billion euros until 2007, a sum that riveted austerity-hit Greeks, angry at the privileges of politicians and an elite seen as having enriched themselves at the country’s expense.

   Financial privacy is one of those things you don’t realize how important is until you have lost it.

5. Privacy risks for any US person (not only expats) via theft of SSNs are real. By using the unique identifier that a SSN represents for tying credit and other information to an individual, the US government has opened a can of worms for everyone. Why didn’t our caring government create another system of indentification numbers for individuals requesting credit, which could be switched or changed instead of being permanently tied to that person? If someone steals your identity via theft of SSN, your life is ruined.

6. *Well, this is very alarming. I don’t know how they got access to private records but doesn’t the U.S. government have a defensive system that prevents access from unknown sources? This might mean trouble for those whose accounts have been accessed.  

7. Just saw this from @Eric who tweeted it…

   https://twitter.com/quant18/status/304742021225123843

   The Privacy Price To Cross The Border

   It’s rare that we want strangers pawing through our digital devices, giving them the opportunity to peruse emails, private messages, photos, Twitter DMs, Facebook pokes, and all the other myriad bits of our personal life captured by the digital umbilical cords that are our smartphones. And when I say “rare,” I mean that it’s something we hope never, ever happens to us. But if you’re crossing the border, it’s something that could happen to you; it happens to thousands of people each year. It even happens to nominally-famous types. Enter Canadian Chad Rook, an actor in the new CW show Cult (which is, coincidentally, a show about mysterious disappearances). Or rather don’t enter. While attempting a road trip in late January from Vancouver to L.A. to join his cast members for the show’s premiere, Rook was detained at the Canadian border for 9 hours, where he had to hand over his iPhone and iPad so that U.S. customs officials could go through his email, Twitter and Facebook accounts looking for evidence that his trip was for work not pleasure. Based on what he calls “no evidence,” the officials gave him a five-year ban from entering the country.