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Millions of people who access Social Security services and track their benefits online will soon need to change their login procedure to continue using their My Social Security accounts.
The Social Security Administration (SSA) announced July 12 that users who established accounts before Sept. 182021using a now-defunct sign-up method will be required to transition those accounts to Login.gova secure sign-in service administered by the federal government.
In a statementthe SSA says the change will allow it “to simplify the sign-in experience and align [My Social Security] with federal authentication standards while providing safe and secure access to online services.”
The change affects about 46 million of the roughly 86 million people who have My Social Security accountsaccording to an SSA spokesperson. Along with posting about the shift on its blogthe agency is notifying individual users by email.
“We’re sending out messages to over 40 million legacy accountsand we’re particularly focused on legacy accounts that have remained activewhich is about half of that,” the spokesperson says.
Old logins out
The SSA launched My Social Security in 2012. Until a few years agopeople signing up for the service did so directly through the Social Security websitessa.govcreating a username and password unique to that account. The agency now uses two other providers for sign-ups: Login.gov and the identity-verification service ID.me.
The My Social Security sign-in page currently offers all three options — Login.govID.me or the Social Security username — depending on how and when you created the account. The third option is the one that's going away. The SSA has not set a deadline for shifting those accounts to Login.govbeyond posting on its blog that the old usernames will sunset "later this year."
