Why Social Security Number a must for activation?

You can buy a home and a car for cash without giving an SSN. You can get utility service without giving an SSN if you give a deposit. You can do the same thing with AT&T for an iPhone. Aside from the IRS, people who need to provide you with income, and most drivers licence agencies, you don't really need to provide your SSN to anyone.

The original post was not asking why an SSN was requested at all, but rather why it had to be entered into iTunes, despite the fact that a credit pre-approval has been obtained in an AT&T store. That seems to be to ensure someone does not activate a phone using your pre-approval number (if you drop the receipt for example).

I have heard that only the last 4 digits of the SSN are checked if you provide a pre-approval number. Can anyone confirm that from experience?

PEOPLE.... This is America and credit is everything. You can not buy a home, a car, get a credit card or any other kind of credit approval without giving up your social security number. WHY are you shocked when you AT&T wants it to activate a phone. This has been standard practice for cell phones since the beginning.
It was WELL known before the phone was actually available that you could go into an AT&T store and do the application there to avoid doing it at home and/or to know in advance should you require a deposit.

Identity theft is not that big a deal for people who actually monitor their credit. Actually most credit card companies do it for you.

WAKE UP.... and read a Suze Orman book.

I guess I had it lucky. I am already a AT&T (Cingular) customer so I handed out my full SSN to them on paper 2-3 years ago. When I signed up online for iPhone I only had to enter the last four digits of it to confirm my identity.

Since the crooks are stealing laptops and breaking into computers and taking SSN's and credit card #s all the time, I'm not that wary any more ... it's like, you can only do so much. I have a triple credit report service running (that I have been told is a waste of money ;)) and get notified if anything suspicious turns up.

"Apple find an alternate way to actvate the phone. In person at a store or online not using your ss#"
First,it's AT&T not Apple running your credit.
Second,If I were you,I wouldn't hold my breath waiting for Co's to run your credit without your SS #.
Jim

PB G3 "Pismo"/ 2.0Ghz BlackBook 2GB OWC RAM/ 8GB iPhone Mac OS X (10.4.10)

You can buy a home and a car for cash without giving
an SSN.

man wish I had that kind of money 🙂

I -would- hope that if preapproved, you only have to enter your last 4 digits online ...

I made another post explaining how to do this:

http://discussions.apple.com/message.jspa?messageID=4825882#4825882

To verify that your the same person that actually set up the account...Also if you click on the "what's this" link to the right of the SSN fields, it explains it to you

It's also used for a credit check.

Also verifies to make sure you are actually 18.

You could just put in all 9's for example 999-99-9999 you would then fail the credit check and sign up under the Go Phone plan. You would still have to give ATT your real SS at some point though.

Credict Check