• Article Type: General
• Product: Aleph
• Product Version: 16.02

Description:
A change in our institution's policies requires that we remove Social Security Numbers (SSNs) from our patron database. How can do this? The SSN is patron id type 02.

Resolution:
The system does not require the SSN/z308 type '02', so it can simply be deleted with SQL. *But* if your p_file_20 is set up to use '02' as the USER-REC-MATCH-ID-TYPE, it requires a bit more thought....

If patron barcodes are assigned by the university, some sites use the barcode (type '01') as the match point. But this can create complications when the barcode card is lost and needs to be changed.

If you want to use a university ID number as the match point and if these ID numbers already exist as z308's in your system (with a different ID-type), then you can simply switch to using that ID-type as the USER-REC-MATCH-ID-TYPE.

If you want to use a university ID number as the match point and these numbers do *not* already exist as z308's in your system, you will need to do a final load using the SSN as the match point and loading the university ID's -- after which you can delete the SSN's and switch p_file_20 to use the university ID ID-type as the USER-REC-MATCH-ID-TYPE.

Also, you may need to update your $usr_library/tab/tab_bor_id.eng, which controls what purposes each ID type is used for in the system.