ARLINGTON, Va., Dec. 10 (UPI) — For the first time since the 1970s, the U.S. Department of Defense is implementing a change to the iconic aluminum identification tags worn around the necks of American servicemen and women.
The change is minor, but impactful. The only thing that will change about the “dog tags” is that they will no longer include servicemen and women’s Social Security numbers — an effort to mitigate identity theft.
“Identity theft is a very real threat for us right now, and so many people are not aware that our information is easily accessed,” Staff Sgt. Kristen Duus said. “By removing socials from ID tags, one more step is being taken to protect ourselves and our identities.”
The Social Security numbers will be replaced by a randomly-generated 10-digit Department of Defense identification number.
“I think removing the social will help,” U.S. Army Soldiers Programs Branch chief Michael Klemowski said. “If you find a pair of lost ID tags you can pretty much do anything with that person’s identity because you now have their blood type, their religion, you have their [SSN], and you have their name. The only thing missing is their birth date and you can usually get that by Googling a person.”
The ID tags, two aluminum plates stamped with the soldiers’ personal information attached to a chain, were first introduced by the U.S. military before World War I as a means to identify soldiers killed in battle. One tag was intended to stay with a soldier’s remains and the other was meant for officials responsible for burial.
Pentagon officials said the change will start with all newly-issued tags and those of deployed servicemen and women. The update will be completed once all personnel receive the new tags.
“This change is not something where Soldiers need to run out and get new tags made,” Klemowski said. “We are focusing first on the personnel who are going to deploy. If a Soldier is going to deploy, they are the first ones that need to have the new ID tags.”
The change was first ordered by the Pentagon’s Social Security Number Reduction Plan and the President’s Task Force on Identity Theft Strategic Plan in 2007, but is only now being implemented. The Army used several systems linked to the SSN and each of them had to be adjusted to work with the new Defense identification number, officials said — a process that took years to complete.
“More and more systems are going to go to the DoD ID number as technology catches up with us and we are able to phase out the Social Security number,” Klemowski said.
Military identification tags are worn by all personnel in the U.S. Armed Forces — Army, Navy, Air Force, Marine Corps and Coast Guard.
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