This month, U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS) announced a new enhancement to its E-Verify system aimed at combating identity fraud by identifying and deterring fraudulent use of Social Security Numbers (SSN) for employment eligibility verification. E-Verify is a free web-based service offered by the Department of Homeland Security that allows employers to quickly verify the employment eligibility of new employees. The new E-Verify safeguard now enables the USCIS to “lock” an SSN that appears to have been misused, such as a stolen, borrowed or purchased SSN. Using a combination of algorithms, detection reports and analysis to identify patterns of fraudulent SSN use, USCIS can lock an SSN in E-Verify, prompting the employee to contest the finding at a local Social Security Administration office, if the employee chooses to challenge the finding.