It was strictly intended to be the number issued to you when you joined the workforce to track you income for taxation and participation in the social security insurance program.
It later was used as a way for the IRS to verify dependents on a 1040.
It has become a de facto identity verifier because nearly every American and resident alien has one issued to them at a young age (or upon arrival)to verify them to the IRS.
A very lazy and greedy financial industry has began to accept them at face value during the credit boom of the 1970's. To this day, loans are granted by predatory institutions which are based on wildly divergent identity and income standards. Those institutions are universally protected from their own mistakes by a legal system that enforces a non-law that says SS numbers should have been kept secret by the numbered somehow.
A quick search led me to many different charges around criminal uses of SSN's. In every case I could find, no one was charged with criminal use of the number, but with committing fraud while using a false number (ie, retail theft via identity theft, fraudulently applying for federal benefits, or the attempts thereof).
Is the use of a false SSN, in and of itself, actually illegal? Or is it just a means to commit fraud?
Do any of our resident lawyers know?
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