From: Intuit@intuit.com
Subject: OFFICIAL REPLY FROM INTUIT RE: SECURITY & SSN
Date: 21 Dec 1995 23:39:03 GMT


Thank you for your recent feedback. Based on your comments and those
of others, the practice of including customers' social security num-
bers on merchant check registers has been discontinued. This change
will be fully implemented within the next few days.

This information was being supplied with checks issued to merchants
in order to assist our customer service personnel in researching pay-
ment problems and servicing merchant inquiries. We regret that this
practice has caused concern for some of our customers.

We appreciate hearing from you, and encourage all our customers to
help us improve our products and services through constructive feed-
back.

Thank you.

Bruce Burchfield,
Chairman and Chief Executive Officer
Intuit Services Corporation


SOCIAL NUMBERS and ONLINE SECURITY

Insuring the privacy and security of your financial information is
Intuit's number one priority in developing this direct connection
between you and the financial institution. You will access your
financial information directly through a private network via your
modem. Further Intuit has taken both technological and procedural
steps to ensure the privacy of your data including public-key cryp-
tography and firewalls. Customer's data does NOT reside on a public
or open network. During data transmission, your PIN is encrypted
and later authenticated at Intuit. The encrypted PIN is not stored
at Intuit. No one at Intuit has access to any bank account without
the PIN, and only you know your PIN. All your data is encrypted from
your computer to Intuit's dial-in server or the bank's server. It is
also encrypted where it is stored.

Since there have been some well-publicized computer break-ins, many
technology companies are now providing state-of-the-art, secure
components that make break-ins near impossible. Intuit's computer
system utilizes these state-of-the-art components like firewalls and
encryption, as well as secure site management.

With the encryption technology being used to secure the data during
transmission even if someone could tap into the line, the data could
not be read or understood. Intuit has a team of independent security
experts perform a comprehensive security audit on the Intuit online
system on a regular basis.

1. Quicken uses the R.S.A. (company name and algorithm) public-key
   encryption system. This system uses 1024 bit modules, with 168 bit
   Triple DES Data encryption keys. All account information for an
   Online Banking session or an Online Billpay session is encrypted,
   including the Social Security Number.

2. Intuit Services Corp. (ISC) customer service can work with the
   customer to have a unique 9-digit number to be used in place of
   the Social Security Number. ISC customer service usually has to
   work with the Financial Institution on this issue.