Guess who knows how much you earn each week? Company collects, sells your salary info to lenders, employers By CARRIE TEEGARDIN The Atlanta Journal-Constitution Published on: 01/20/08 Most Americans carefully guard the details of their paychecks, sharing this information with only the boss, the spouse and the Internal Revenue Service. But these days, someone else is in on the secret. The Work Number, a little-known product of Atlanta-based Equifax, captures the salaries and job titles of 46 million Americans every time they collect a paycheck. That represents about a third of the American workforce. For the past decade, The Work Number has been warehousing and selling this information to lenders and employers who want to verify incomes or conduct background checks. Dozens of large Georgia employers send their employment information to The Work Number, including Coca-Cola, UPS, Home Depot, Delta Air Lines, Georgia-Pacific, Georgia Power and Emory University. Even if you've never heard of The Work Number, chances are good that it has heard about you. The company won't disclose exactly how many individuals appear in its database. But it says it has 165 million employment records that cover both current workers and former employees. "That is quite a repository," said Elizabeth De Armond, an expert on privacy law who is an assistant professor at Chicago-Kent College of Law. Some privacy experts say that simply storing the confidential information of so many people in a central database is troubling. "Any collection of personally identifying information like that leads to the high potential for identify theft," De Armond said. "It's sensitive data." Executives at The Work Number say they carefully safeguard the data, which also includes Social Security numbers. "It's critically important that we do all of the right things to protect the data," said Stacey Simpson, The Work Number's president. The Work Number is part of St. Louis-based TALX Corp., which was acquired last year by Equifax. Consumers can review and dispute information held in The Work Number's files. That access is made available to consumers as part of the company's pledge to voluntarily comply with the federal Fair Credit Reporting Act, a law that requires openness and accuracy from companies that sell consumer reports. Companies that buy reports from The Work Number must also agree to follow the federal law, which requires that consumers be notified if information in a consumer report costs them a job or a loan. The Work Number says problems with the data are rare â?? just 150 disputes a month, compared with 1.1 million verifications. Company says access limited Employers provide the data to The Work Number to avoid the expense and hassle of verifying employment and salary to outsiders. Those requests come in when a worker applies for a job, a loan or a public benefit such as food stamps. Historically, corporate human resources departments handled that task. The Work Number offered a way for companies to outsource the task with an automated process, allowing for quick and easy verifications through an online interface. Many Americans don't find out they are included in The Work Number's database until they need an official verification for a loan or a job application. The Work Number said it takes a number of steps to limit access. Users must be credentialed by The Work Number, a process that requires they provide detailed information about the organization that will use the data. The organization must also promise it will buy reports only for a legal purpose, such as a lending or hiring decision. The user must already know the worker's Social Security number to access a report. A customer who wants salary information must supply The Work Number with a code that can only be obtained from the worker. Simpson said The Work Number is also heavily protected against hackers who might attempt to access the information. "Because of our due diligence process, it's actually more secure for the consumer" than getting the information from a corporate human resources department, Simpson said. She said the process also insures that information about employees is delivered in a fair, objective way. Security questioned Some consumers question whether The Work Number's security is airtight. Robert Starks, a 26-year-old who lives in Chicago, contacted the Privacy Rights Clearinghouse, a non-profit consumer organization, in 2006 to report that The Work Number improperly released his information about him. Starks said someone he had a dispute with accessed The Work Number and was able to find out where Starks worked. Starks said the person then made harassing and threatening calls to his workplace. He said The Work Number refused to block access to his information. He tried again last year after learning that his current employer was also forwarding his employment and salary information to The Work Number. He said that, with some persistence, The Work Number finally agreed to block access to his information. Starks said he thought the process to opt out should have been easier. "Also, I didn't like the the fact that my employer was just giving this information out to a company like TALX without telling me," he said. The complaint concerned Beth Givens, director and founder of Privacy Rights Clearinghouse. "This is a huge database with very sensitive information in it," Givens said. "It should be extremely difficult for illegitimate individuals to access it." 'We don't want to touch the data' Another consumer, Shelli Isiminger, complained about The Work Number in 2004 in a public comment to the Federal Trade Commission. As the FTC prepared a report to Congress on the Fair Credit Reporting Act, Isiminger posted a comment based on her experience with a former employer who gave The Work Number the wrong job title when forwarding her employment records. The title was for a lesser position than what she held, Isiminger wrote, making it appear that she had lied on her resume. The Work Number would not change the information, she said, and referred her to her former employer. Isiminger wrote that she had difficulty getting the employer to address the matter. "Something must be done to make the public aware of these type of database-reporting third parties," she wrote. The Work Number said its staff is dedicated to accuracy, but employers have the last word. "We don't want to manipulate or touch the data in any way," Simpson said. If an employer and a worker cannot resolve a dispute, Simpson said, the worker may place a flag on the information noting the dispute. Simpson said such problems are unusual. "The employers want to do what is right for the employee," she said. "These are human resources individuals, so that's their whole concern." Excerpted from http://www.ajc.com/business/content/business/stories/2008/01/18/worknumber_0120.html
I know that if we want to apply for a mortgage or anything else needing salary verification, we have to get a PIN and give it to the lender. They have to have that PIN (it comes to the employee, who provides it to the lender) or they don't get the information. Sounds like it could be this.
