Canada
The use of the Social Insurance Number (SIN) as a "de facto" ID number ended in 2004 with passage of The Personal Information Protection and Electronic Documents Act. There are only certain specified instances where an organization may ask for a SIN (namely for tax or retirement benefit related issues). The SIN must be guarded as confidential personal information, and therefore cannot be used as a general ID number.
Read more about this topic: National Identification Number
Famous quotes containing the word canada:
“This universal exhibition in Canada of the tools and sinews of war reminded me of the keeper of a menagerie showing his animals’ claws. It was the English leopard showing his claws.”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)
“Though the words Canada East on the map stretch over many rivers and lakes and unexplored wildernesses, the actual Canada, which might be the colored portion of the map, is but a little clearing on the banks of the river, which one of those syllables would more than cover.”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)
“I see Canada as a country torn between a very northern, rather extraordinary, mystical spirit which it fears and its desire to present itself to the world as a Scotch banker.”
—Robertson Davies (b. 1913)