First published in 1948, the International Social Security Review is the principal international quarterly publication in the field of social security.
The possession and use of a personal social security number helps to structure people’s daily lives. However, despite its fundamental normative importance, the social security number remains a little-known entity. Increasingly universal and yet diverse in form, it is a legal and technical norm which is as much a mechanism for surveillance and monitoring as it is a necessary instrument for giving effect to social rights. Analysis of this constituent element of social security systems permits as assessment of some of the technical difficulties presented by the ever-increasing movement of people and data. Overcoming these technical difficulties should permit to envisage a first technical step towards realizing a universal and global social security system.