SSA using digital certificates for wage reporting
SSA using digital certificates for wage reporting
By Dipka Bhambhani
GCN Staff
APRIL 25'After completing a public-key infrastructure pilot last year, the Social Security Administration is using digital certificates for online wage reporting. This marks SSA's first service using PKI.
An agency survey of 100 participating companies found a 90 percent approval rating, SSA officials said. The companies reported wages online via Web browsers using 128-bit encryption. More information about the pilot appears at
www.ssa.gov/employer/pkipilot/main.html.
Digital Signature Trust Co. of Salt Lake City is the agency's certification authority under the General Services Administration's Access Certificates for Electronic Services contract. The certificates are free through May 31 to pilot participants, who also must obtain employer personal identification numbers and passwords.
Agency officials said automating the W-2 submissions was a priority for them. Nearly 6.5 million employers nationwide submit more than 240 million of the forms for their employees.