From:	Chris Siebenmann <cks@********.UTCS.TORONTO.EDU>
Subject:	Re: To SIN or not to SIN
Date:	Tue, 1 Mar 1994 16:00:06 -0500

To me, a SIN in the UCAS is a ticket to the wonderful world of
government benefits, such as free primary education for your kids. SINs
identify you to your government; SINs identify you to other governments,
much like passports, assuming the other governments recognize them.

Because they entitle you to things, in my Shadowrun worlds governments
generally try not to give them out. They have to give them out if one
of your parents held a SIN and your birth was properly registered;
they will give them out if you're giving them money in tax revenues or
otherwise pumping money into the system. You can often 'buy' SINs in
this manner, if you want to.

Why would you not want to have a SIN at all, legal or forged? The
problem with SINs is that they carry enough information to identify
you as you; things like fingerprints, retinal prints, or DNA summaries.
This can be used to correlate things to you; if you have multiple SINs
that will verify correctly, people can also match them up.

- cks