9 ms·

Equifax has salary data? I hadn't heard that. //edit: Well shit, TIL: https://krebsonsecurity.com/2017/10/equifax-breach-fallout-your-salary-history/ https://k

Equifax has salary data? I hadn't heard that. //edit: Well shit, TIL: https://krebsonsecurity.com/2017/10/equifax-breach-fallout-your-salary-history/ https://krebsonsecurity.com/2017/10/equifax-breach-fallout-y...

ryguytilidie 9y ago
Any time you apply for a credit card or other form of credit, you generally have to give your income.
- gfosco 9y ago
  It's much worse than that... The recent "The Work Number" incident showed they shared access to your entire paycheck history, in detail.
  - wavefunction 9y ago
    at the granular level of per paycheck, even
    - ericd 9y ago
      So they're buying it from ADP?
      - falcolas 9y ago
        Or getting it automatically from the employers in exchange for having access to it for new hires.
        ericd 9y ago
        I doubt most employers would go for that, but I suppose it's possible. More importantly, though, it'd also be much harder than getting it from a payroll provider.
        gehwartzen 9y ago
        According to wiki they have 225 million employment records and according to The Work Number they are used by 82% of Fortune 500 employers. Then they turn around and sell all that data while telling the participating companies what a wonderful service they are providing them by offloading this task from traditional HR. It's crazy.
        ericd 9y ago
        Oh, wow, that is crazy.
        gehwartzen 9y ago
        Prepare to be even more shocked. Here is a 'sample' of the EDR report you can request from The Work Number containing all the information that they have on you and may or may not be giving out (or selling to the highest bidder): https://www.theworknumber.com/samples/The-Work-Number-Employment-Data-Report-EFX-WS-0205-11-21-14.pdf https://www.theworknumber.com/samples/The-Work-Number-Employ... As you can see its much more than 'just' your salary. It includes (amongst other things): Union Affiliation; Salary breakdown (Base, OT, Commission, Bonus); Dates of pay increases; Medical Insurance (coverage, Policy #, Provider name, Annual cost); Any Workers Comp claims; Breakdown of your paycheck (401k contribution, taxes payed, garnishments, etc) Just imagine the national outrage if some employer was shown to be directly selling this information to someone about their own employees. Yet a third party is doing just that and many companies are complicit. It is absolutely outrageous! 'hmmm maybe I don't want to hire Joe Shmo, after all he did join a union in the past. He might try to unionize our plant' 'looks like Joe also has some garnishments, doesn't sound like someone we want on our team. Probably has a troubled past.' 'well looks like Joe made 70k last year, but a lot of that was from working OT. I think we can get away with offering him 60k and promising him a lot of OT "opportunities"'
- majormajor 9y ago
  Proving my income (with paystubs or a W2) separately from the credit report the bank ran always gave me the impression that the credit agencies didn't have that info. Nor do I ever recall seeing it in the reports I got from them. Welp.
- rconti 9y ago
  I've only given fairly vague numbers on these things. Can't say it's hurt my creditworthiness.
  - ryanlol 9y ago
    You don't need to be honest in your applications, just consistent. The data you enter becomes "the truth" in their system.
- pravda 9y ago
  >you generally have to give your income. Well, you certainly don't have to give your "real" income. Aspirational income is fine.
  - chc 9y ago
    Wouldn't applying for credit based on "aspirational" finances be fraud?
    - ada1981 9y ago
      It generally asked your household income. This means many 18 year olds can report 6 or even 7 figure household incomes.
      - chc 9y ago
        I wouldn't call that an aspirational income, though — would you? That's just your real household income. It's also not an option for most adults, who are almost all older than 18.
      - darklajid 9y ago
        Putting aside the household income for a moment: "Many" being able to report 6 figure incomes seems quiiiiite a stretch to me, 7 seems insane. Do you have a source for this? Or can you define "many" some more?
        sokoloff 9y ago
        A million or more 18-20 year olds could no doubt truthfully report 6-figure household income. To me, that's "many". (Slightly over a quarter of households in the US have a household income over $100K as reported on tax returns. Household income for the purposes of credit application can be meaningfully higher than for adjusted gross income tax return concerns.)
        mmcclellan 9y ago
alexanderstears 9y ago
They do - I'm not sure how they licence it though or what data sources they use but I've seen that their data on high income households is the best in the business and shockingly accurate. However, I can't imagine the compliance nightmare that would exist around a process that lets HR people look up people's equifax information. If they get a full report, it could contain information about disabilities, national origin, ethnicity, religion, and enough information to construct knowledge about sexual orientation. However, all that information is pretty worthless for most decisions. Aside from it being illegal to use that information for hiring decisions (in most situations), the equifax stuff isn't super accurate. I've looked myself up and it gets a lot of information wrong, most other people I know who have looked themselves up in have also found major inaccuracies.
- dsgfhasgjklas 9y ago
  > However, I can't imagine the compliance nightmare that would exist around a process that lets HR people look up people's equifax information. Employment credit checks are perfectly legal.
  - icantdrive55 9y ago
    Not in CA.
- burger_moon 9y ago
  "... disabilities, national origin, ethnicity, religion, and enough information to construct knowledge about sexual orientation." Don't employers already get most of that from doing in person interviews? Even through phone screens you can gather most of that information.
  - throwanem 9y ago
    In the US, those are protected categories about which a prospective employer may not inquire. This point was explicitly called out and repeatedly reiterated in the training I received a few years back about how to participate in an interview from that side of the table. Some of that information can be obvious, as in the case of visible disability and occasionally ethnicity. But it's not permissible to inquire in any case. And speaking from the side of the interviewee, such questions would immediately bring the interview to a not overly friendly close, both because the answers are none of any prospective employer's business, and because no company so insensate to liability concerns is likely destined to end up anywhere I care to go.
astura 9y ago
So do LexusNexis and probably a handful of other data brokers.
biafra 9y ago
That is a total nightmare. How are employers allowed to give that kind of information to Equifax? I do not get why Americans allow this.
- astura 9y ago
  It's not different than credit card companies giving payment histories to credit bureaus or insurance companies giving claims history to LexusNexis.
  - mcv 9y ago
    Shouldn't this be handled by a government agency? It seems awfully risky to have unaccountable companies trade your sensitive information around for profit.
    - KekDemaga 9y ago
      The government is at least equally incompetent if not more so, at least if a private entity screws up you can sue.
      - emodendroket 9y ago
        The government is also not operated on a for-profit basis incentivizing doing the bare minimum level of security to shield yourself from liability.
        KekDemaga 9y ago
        >The government is also not operated on a for-profit basis incentivizing doing the bare minimum level of security to shield yourself from liability. No instead they hire contractors for that purpose.
        emodendroket 9y ago
        OK, well, while I'm making proposals, let's go ahead and hire people to be employed by the government instead.
emodendroket 9y ago
Yeah, at one place I worked they were able to use that to determine whether people were qualified for means-tested aid in seconds. Which obviously made things faster but it gives you pause to know it's so easy to find out.

ryguytilidie 9y ago

Any time you apply for a credit card or other form of credit, you generally have to give your income.

gfosco 9y ago
It's much worse than that... The recent "The Work Number" incident showed they shared access to your entire paycheck history, in detail.
- wavefunction 9y ago
  at the granular level of per paycheck, even
  - ericd 9y ago
    So they're buying it from ADP?
    - falcolas 9y ago
      Or getting it automatically from the employers in exchange for having access to it for new hires.
      - ericd 9y ago
        I doubt most employers would go for that, but I suppose it's possible. More importantly, though, it'd also be much harder than getting it from a payroll provider.
        gehwartzen 9y ago
        According to wiki they have 225 million employment records and according to The Work Number they are used by 82% of Fortune 500 employers. Then they turn around and sell all that data while telling the participating companies what a wonderful service they are providing them by offloading this task from traditional HR. It's crazy.
        ericd 9y ago
        Oh, wow, that is crazy.
        gehwartzen 9y ago
        Prepare to be even more shocked. Here is a 'sample' of the EDR report you can request from The Work Number containing all the information that they have on you and may or may not be giving out (or selling to the highest bidder): https://www.theworknumber.com/samples/The-Work-Number-Employment-Data-Report-EFX-WS-0205-11-21-14.pdf https://www.theworknumber.com/samples/The-Work-Number-Employ... As you can see its much more than 'just' your salary. It includes (amongst other things): Union Affiliation; Salary breakdown (Base, OT, Commission, Bonus); Dates of pay increases; Medical Insurance (coverage, Policy #, Provider name, Annual cost); Any Workers Comp claims; Breakdown of your paycheck (401k contribution, taxes payed, garnishments, etc) Just imagine the national outrage if some employer was shown to be directly selling this information to someone about their own employees. Yet a third party is doing just that and many companies are complicit. It is absolutely outrageous! 'hmmm maybe I don't want to hire Joe Shmo, after all he did join a union in the past. He might try to unionize our plant' 'looks like Joe also has some garnishments, doesn't sound like someone we want on our team. Probably has a troubled past.' 'well looks like Joe made 70k last year, but a lot of that was from working OT. I think we can get away with offering him 60k and promising him a lot of OT "opportunities"'
majormajor 9y ago
Proving my income (with paystubs or a W2) separately from the credit report the bank ran always gave me the impression that the credit agencies didn't have that info. Nor do I ever recall seeing it in the reports I got from them. Welp.
rconti 9y ago
I've only given fairly vague numbers on these things. Can't say it's hurt my creditworthiness.
- ryanlol 9y ago
  You don't need to be honest in your applications, just consistent. The data you enter becomes "the truth" in their system.
pravda 9y ago
>you generally have to give your income. Well, you certainly don't have to give your "real" income. Aspirational income is fine.
- chc 9y ago
  Wouldn't applying for credit based on "aspirational" finances be fraud?
  - ada1981 9y ago
    It generally asked your household income. This means many 18 year olds can report 6 or even 7 figure household incomes.
    - chc 9y ago
      I wouldn't call that an aspirational income, though — would you? That's just your real household income. It's also not an option for most adults, who are almost all older than 18.
    - darklajid 9y ago
      Putting aside the household income for a moment: "Many" being able to report 6 figure incomes seems quiiiiite a stretch to me, 7 seems insane. Do you have a source for this? Or can you define "many" some more?
      - sokoloff 9y ago
        A million or more 18-20 year olds could no doubt truthfully report 6-figure household income. To me, that's "many". (Slightly over a quarter of households in the US have a household income over $100K as reported on tax returns. Household income for the purposes of credit application can be meaningfully higher than for adjusted gross income tax return concerns.)
        mmcclellan 9y ago

alexanderstears 9y ago

They do - I'm not sure how they licence it though or what data sources they use but I've seen that their data on high income households is the best in the business and shockingly accurate. However, I can't imagine the compliance nightmare that would exist around a process that lets HR people look up people's equifax information. If they get a full report, it could contain information about disabilities, national origin, ethnicity, religion, and enough information to construct knowledge about sexual orientation. However, all that information is pretty worthless for most decisions. Aside from it being illegal to use that information for hiring decisions (in most situations), the equifax stuff isn't super accurate. I've looked myself up and it gets a lot of information wrong, most other people I know who have looked themselves up in have also found major inaccuracies.

dsgfhasgjklas 9y ago
> However, I can't imagine the compliance nightmare that would exist around a process that lets HR people look up people's equifax information. Employment credit checks are perfectly legal.
- icantdrive55 9y ago
  Not in CA.
burger_moon 9y ago
"... disabilities, national origin, ethnicity, religion, and enough information to construct knowledge about sexual orientation." Don't employers already get most of that from doing in person interviews? Even through phone screens you can gather most of that information.
- throwanem 9y ago
  In the US, those are protected categories about which a prospective employer may not inquire. This point was explicitly called out and repeatedly reiterated in the training I received a few years back about how to participate in an interview from that side of the table. Some of that information can be obvious, as in the case of visible disability and occasionally ethnicity. But it's not permissible to inquire in any case. And speaking from the side of the interviewee, such questions would immediately bring the interview to a not overly friendly close, both because the answers are none of any prospective employer's business, and because no company so insensate to liability concerns is likely destined to end up anywhere I care to go.

astura 9y ago

So do LexusNexis and probably a handful of other data brokers.

biafra 9y ago

That is a total nightmare. How are employers allowed to give that kind of information to Equifax? I do not get why Americans allow this.

astura 9y ago
It's not different than credit card companies giving payment histories to credit bureaus or insurance companies giving claims history to LexusNexis.
- mcv 9y ago
  Shouldn't this be handled by a government agency? It seems awfully risky to have unaccountable companies trade your sensitive information around for profit.
  - KekDemaga 9y ago
    The government is at least equally incompetent if not more so, at least if a private entity screws up you can sue.
    - emodendroket 9y ago
      The government is also not operated on a for-profit basis incentivizing doing the bare minimum level of security to shield yourself from liability.
      - KekDemaga 9y ago
        >The government is also not operated on a for-profit basis incentivizing doing the bare minimum level of security to shield yourself from liability. No instead they hire contractors for that purpose.
        emodendroket 9y ago
        OK, well, while I'm making proposals, let's go ahead and hire people to be employed by the government instead.

emodendroket 9y ago

Yeah, at one place I worked they were able to use that to determine whether people were qualified for means-tested aid in seconds. Which obviously made things faster but it gives you pause to know it's so easy to find out.