It's hard for me to give that kind of answer. The department may be able to respond to that better.
Certainly the social insurance number is used by a lot of different organizations, and not only the federal government. Obviously private industry will use it as an identifier for T4s, and all the rest of that, but it could be used as a basis for obtaining other cards and other information. So if you can appropriate a social insurance number, it can perhaps become easier to steal someone's identity.
So that was one of the concerns we were raising: has the number not become more than simply a file identifier? If so, then the procedures around the issuance of the number have to be strengthened accordingly. As we've mentioned before, in 2002 the government reaffirmed its policy that it was simply a file identifier.