Social Insurance Number Authentication
Arkhein _
The Social Insurance Number (SIN) was created in 1964 to serve as a client account number in the administration of the Canada Pension Plan (CPP) and Canada's varied employment insurance programs. In 1967, Revenue Canada, now called Canada Customs and Revenue Agency (CCRA) Canada Revenue Agency (CRA), co-opted the SIN and started using it for tax reporting purposes. Since then, things have gotten way out of control.
The SIN is arguably your most valuable identification number and should be closely guarded. A person possessing your SIN can easily apply for a credit card or open a bank account, rent vehicles, equipment, or accommodation -- all in your name and you will be held responsible by authorities. Never use your SIN number as identification except where required by law.
The only legislated uses of the SIN are: Canada Customs and Revenue Agency, your employer for Income Tax reporting, banks (with some exceptions), Social Assistance programs, and a few other government and/or tax related agencies. When in doubt make them prove that you are legally obligated to provide your SIN. Unless an organization can demonstrate that your SIN is required by law, or that no alternative identifier would suffice to complete the transaction, you cannot be denied a product or service on the grounds of your refusal to provide your SIN. Banks don't even require your SIN anymore when you open an account. Since interest rates are so low and service charges are so high, they are finally acknowledging that it more than cancels out any interest you could ever hope to get. You may find some banks that try to insist that you provide your SIN. Be persistent and/or shop around.
Widespread use of the SIN as identification has put many people's personal information and privacy at risk. Computer technology makes it possible to use the SIN to find and match your information from one database to another; thereby facilitating the creation of a detailed profile about you. Of course, if you are using credit/debit cards you are already seriously fucked in that regard.
Indeed, the truly enlightened citizen probably realizes that they should have never applied for a SIN in the first place.
Algorithm _
Social Insurance Numbers are validated via a simple checksum process.
Let's use this fictitious SIN to demonstrate:
046 454 286 < Try substituting your SIN
046 454 286 \ Multiply each top number
121 212 121 / by the number below it..
-----------
086 858 276 < and get this.
^
Notice here that 8*2=16, add 1 and
6 together and get 7. If you get a
2 digit # add the digits together.
Add all of these digits together.
0+8+6+8+5+8+2+7+6=50
/\
If the SIN is valid this # will
be evenly divisible by 10. This
is a 'valid' SIN.
Application _
Here is a JavaScript app which demonstrates the algorithm.
I also wrote a simple SIN validator for the PalmPilot. Requires cbasPad.
Analysis _
The first digit of a SIN indicates province of registration.
1 = NB, NF, NS, PE | 6 = AB, MB, SK, NT, NU? |
Furthermore, it seems the second and third digits can be related to the birth-date of the SIN holder, or probably more accurately, the date period in which the SIN was registered. For this analysis I've had to rely on date of birth since most people don't know when they registered for their SIN. (Though the average age of registration seems to be around 17.) (Note: In the case of SIN's starting with 9 I am tracking date of registration.) We can clearly see a pattern in the tables below. SIN's appear to be assigned incrementally by region. More data is still required to complete this analysis and furnish comprehensive tables.
At the present time I have kept the prairie provinces seperated from one another and done the same for the maritimes. Though it is definitely looking like they are treated as groups and I may merge their respective sets of data once I have collected enough to prove this conclusively.
(AB) Alberta | (NF) Newfoundland | (PE) PEI |
A reader (who should probably remain anonymous) sent in this excellent spreadsheet which shows the average age for a given 3-digit SIN prefix based on data gleaned from a database to which the reader had access.
I would like to thank everyone who has contributed data in an effort to further this project. It has certainly helped answer some questions. Everyone I have spoken to, even government employees at the provincial and federal levels, has told me that there is absolutely no correlation between the SIN and birth-date or date of registration. I think it is very clear now that there is a direct correlation and that a person's age can be fairly accurately estimated based on their SIN.
A lot of data is still needed to finish the above tables, so if you havn't submitted the first 3 digits of your SIN along with province of registration and date of birth, please e-mail it to me. Thanks.
Abuse _
- Assumimg the name of someone deceased who has not been recorded as dead in the SIN registry. According to the SIN registry, over 300,000 dead Canadians are still alive.
- Assuming a living persons identity.
- Using a false birth certificate to obtain one.
- Temporary SINs issued to foreign students and other non-permanent residents.
There are almost 4 million more active SINs than there are people in Canada. Opportunities for SIN abuse are numerous and include fraudulently obtaining government benefits, insurance, and credit cards. These are also some of the reasons why you shouldn't divulge your SIN to anyone but your employer and the tax-man.
Methods for aquiring SINs include:
To make matters worse (or better, depending on your angle), SIN fraud investigations carried out by the federal Human Resources Development Canada (HRDC: the same people responsible for the ridiculously inaccurate SIN registry) are weak or non-existant. The maximum penalty for SIN fraud is a $1,000 fine and one year in prison. Though fines of a couple hundred dollars with no prison time are the norm for the few who are actually caught and prosecuted.
Also _
The SIN algorithm is commonly known as the LUHN algorithm or the mod-10 algorithm. It also happens to be used to validate Credit Card numbers among other things.
The SIN algorithm can be arranged to generate as well as validate.
A more accurate and suitable acronym for SIN is "Slave Identification Number". This document and its related links may shed some light on this, or perhaps not. Our slave-masters have crafted one of the most incomprehensible and maze-like shit-piles of verbiage that is designed to confuse us into believing the sweat of our brow is their property. When you apply for a SIN, you become a volunteer slave.
When fabricating a SIN it is probably best to start with the first three digits of someone's SIN in the particular province you want, who is in your age group, then build it from that.
The Seven Deadly Sins are Pride, Envy, Gluttony, Lust, Anger, Greed, and Sloth.
The Canadian government uses the same authentication algorithm on many, if not all, of its "unique" numbers. It is used for employer account numbers, trust numbers, Income Tax Filer identification (your H&R Block e-file rep), and the first nine digits of the Business Number (BN). When there are letters in the identification number the following table is used to convert the letters to numbers:
A B C D E F G H I
J K L M N O P Q R
S T U V W X Y Z
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1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9
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