by Jaime Garchitorena

JUST A FRIENDLY REMINDER REGARDING YOUR TIN, SSS, and GSIS numbers.

In the past, these numbers have had little or no value to us except to identify yourself to the agency that supplied the number and to log in to any logbook that required an official government ID.

By next year (or so), any of these three ID’s will be used by many companies as the PRIMARY IDENTIFIER/S in the process approving loans or giving you a utility service. This is practiced in other economies as well. Famously and anecdotally, the United States uses the Social Security Number for many transactions.

This means that we should protect these numbers as closely (if not with more rigor) as we protect the passwords for our emails, FB, accounts and other personal level security applications.

As an example of how lightly we treat the value of these numbers, some of our companies sometimes have the habit of putting these numbers at the back of their ID cards alongside emergency contact details. This is not a safe place to locate these numbers. You may wish to consult with your admin or HR departments on this matter.

Our company has already removed these details from the back of our IDs. This is due to the fact that if I lose my ID then someone will have access to these numbers.

Again, this process of using these three ID numbers are at least a year in the future. There will be also other bits of personal information that you will be required to input so that these IDs will NOT be the SOLE data used to process a transaction.

That said it is best to understand the value of keeping these three ID numbers by making these secure and keeping these numbers only to yourself. They should (ideally) be primarily used with agencies from which they came from, and with institutions that have high levels of security like banks and other financial institutions.

Do not, Do not, Do not, use these numbers on unsecured transactions like logbooks and similar recording processes.

For purposes that need some type of formal government ID, use your Philhealth, Drivers License, Voters ID, or any other ID available.

Forewarned is Forearmed. And Knowing is Half the Battle.

Jaime Garchitorena is the President of the Credit Information Corporation. The Credit Information Corporation (CIC) is a government-owned and controlled corporation that is envisioned to be the leading provider of independent, reliable and accurate credit information in the Philippines.