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NOTE: It is possible to freeze access to your employment data here: https://employees.theworknumber.com/employee-data-freeze https://employees.theworknumber.com
by BeefySwain 5y ago
NOTE: It is possible to freeze access to your employment data here: https://employees.theworknumber.com/employee-data-freeze https://employees.theworknumber.com/employee-data-freeze
That being said, it doesn't stop employers from continuing to hand Equifax your data on a gold platter, and therefore does nothing to protect you from the inevitable data breach that will result in Equifax being required to give everyone affected $0.36 or one year of free credit monitoring.
- mesozoic 5y agoAre there other agencies we have to do this for as well?
- givemeethekeys 5y agoBut, I didn't opt in for them to have this information about me to begin with.
- maratbn 5y agotheworknumber.com is yet another symptom of a much larger problem in that it is currently impractical for a regular person to enforce their rights via the court system. According to Peter Thiel “If you’re a single-digit millionaire like Hulk Hogan, you have no effective access to our legal system...” https://theintercept.com/2016/10/31/trump-fan-peter-thiel-says-single-digit-millionaires-have-no-effective-access-to-our-legal-system/ https://theintercept.com/2016/10/31/trump-fan-peter-thiel-sa... So never-mind the non-millionaires. However it is really nice to see efforts by some regular people out there setting up services such as https://yourdigitalrights.org https://yourdigitalrights.org which is the service I just used to request my information from Equifax. It will be interesting to see what comes of it. I suppose if they do not respond in 45 days I'll file a complaint with the CA Attorney General to put yet another ping regarding Equifax on their radar. https://oag.ca.gov/contact/consumer-complaint-against-business-or-company https://oag.ca.gov/contact/consumer-complaint-against-busine... This shows that ultimately it is the regular people who drive progress, while the powerful and the wealthy just take credit for it. Ultimately United States will transition to European-style privacy laws when it comes to private information like income and these credit agencies will be abolished, but the way to get there is for the regular non-millionaire people to exercise whatever "rights" they kinda have to ultimately get these annoyances shut down.
- vulcan01 5y agoYou don't need to. Your employer can give this info to whoever they want, and many give this data to Equifax or one of the other credit agencies. Also, you might give your bank employment details, and your bank will most likely send that info to a credit agency as well. There's not much of an escape.
- registeredcorn 5y agoWhat exactly do employers and banks stand to gain from sharing this information? Is it an exchange of information for money?
- ralph84 5y agoFor employers it offloads employment and salary verification. Instead of having to pay someone to answer verification calls all day they just upload the data to The Work Number and let them handle it.
- divbzero 5y agoAre employers obligated to provide employment and salary verification?
- ralph84 5y agoIf they didn't their employees would be pretty pissed when they're unable to get a mortgage.
- yjftsjthsd-h 5y agoSo go to HR and say "please sign this form that says I make $X" rather than preemptively broadcasting it?
- function_seven 5y agoHere's how I imagine this goes down: ADP Rep: "Hey, we have an exciting new feature to offer you! We partner with the worlds premiere credit and employment reporting agency to eliminate the hassle of salary and employment verification." VP, HR: "Go on..." ADP: "If you opt in to this innovative program, you'll never again have to respond to your employees' lenders or landlords. 97% of banks participate in this program. Instead of them asking their applicant—your employee—for paperwork that you have to deal with, they come direct to the source automatically. Again, this is at no additional cost. It's included with our Premium Payroll Plus offering. Interested?" HR: "Yeah, of course. One less thing I have to deal with" ADP: "And the best part is you'll then qualify for a substantial discount on our partner's Employment Data System. Rest easy with unlimited verification reports for all your prospective new hires" HR: "Anyone ever turn this down?" ADP: "Almost never."
- geoduck14 5y ago>But, I didn't opt in for them to have this information about me to begin with. Everyone is up in arms about Facebook and Google collecting our information... meanwhile credit bureaus are sitting in the shadows giggling to themselves
- caconym_ 5y agoThe obsession with "big tech" as the biggest abuser of consumer privacy frustrates the hell out of me, and must be a real delight to credit bureaus, cell carriers, data brokers, fintech parasites, and all the rest of the slimy fuckers who do far worse things every day and aren't even on the public's radar.
- randmeerkat 5y agoReporting an employee’s salary vs Zuckerberg selling your political motivations to manipulate elections are two different ballparks. It’s not that people aren’t frustrated with other abusers of customer privacy, it’s just big tech is the best at it.
- caconym_ 5y agoThe Big Techs that run on ad revenue typically keep user data to themselves, and offer advertisers a platform for targeting ads without knowledge of individual users. There have been some scandals (CA is the one I always think of, and there are more) but typically selling de-anonymized user data is not the business model of these companies. That doesn't stop people from saying it is, but AFAIK they are largely incorrect. Contrast that with e.g. the somewhat recent revelations that cell carriers have been selling individuals' granular, de-anonymized location history data to, essentially, anybody willing to pay. From a privacy standpoint, which I think is the context here, I consider the latter sort of thing to be far worse.
- fallingknife 5y agoThey are 2 very different ballparks in that I would much rather let FB sell my info which I provide willingly than a credit bureau sell my salary history, which I don't.
- the_arun 5y agoSo a new company you are joining can easily verify your current salary with your ssn & dob. Right? They have your history of employers from your resume already.
- astura 5y agoThat's not legal under the FCRA unless you've given them written permission. Though some companies will do a background check on all new hires (again, with your permission) which would include employment verification.
- joezydeco 5y agoAnd that's a critical point to remember. Get the job offer and negotiate salary before agreeing to a background check. Let them make the offer be contingent on the results of those checks (and drug screen or security check or whatever else they want). But before turning in notice on your current job, wait until all checks are completed and make them reissue the offer letter with all contingencies removed. Otherwise you're still at risk of them pulling the offer while you're busy packing up your desk.
- varenc 5y agoWow placing a freeze requires filling out a PDF form, attaching a scan of your ID, and then sending it in over email, mail, or fax. The PDF lacks built in form fields you can type in. The extra friction is probably a feature: https://assets.equifax.com/wfs/theworknumber/assets/twn_Employment_Data_Freeze_Placement_Form.pdf https://assets.equifax.com/wfs/theworknumber/assets/twn_Empl... (the exif data on that PDF shows the name of the employee that created it and that they used Word 2010...) The Equifax CCPA request process on the other hand is very smooth and automated. Though doesn't seem like it's including Work Number information: https://myprivacy.equifax.com/ https://myprivacy.equifax.com/
- drunner 5y agoAt least they let you mail or email. I faxed them 4 times in 6 months to verify my identity because they have me confused with someone else and eventually just gave up. They said any other alternative was not supported.
- LurkersWillLurk 5y agoYou can contact a consumer law attorney to get this fixed. There is an attorney's fees provision in the FCRA which will make it economical to pursue the remedy.
- gruez 5y ago>The extra friction is probably a feature: https://assets.equifax.com/wfs/theworknumber/assets/twn_Empl https://assets.equifax.com/wfs/theworknumber/assets/twn_Empl... (the exif data on that PDF shows the name of the employee that created it and that they used Word 2010...) I don't get it. how is "PDF shows the name of the employee that created it and that they used Word 2010" relevant to the claim that "extra friction is probably a feature"?
- haswell 5y agoJust speculating here, but I wonder if their point is that they went out of their way to create a PDF that is as unusable as possible, and that Word 2010 is somehow required to create such a PDF. A few simpler explanations: - Equifax IT hasn't rolled out modern O365 apps - The form was created a long time ago, and has not been updated Regardless of the exif data, I do believe that friction is absolutely a feature in this process, but I also think the Word 2010 angle is tenuous at best.
- BeefySwain 5y agoHijacking here to say, literally all you need to get access to someones employment + salary history is their SSN and birthdate. edit: and a past employer that used this system Birthdays are extremely easy to get (public record), and I seem to recall a specific large organization leaking a bunch of SSN's not too long ago.......
- cmeacham98 5y agoUnless you are very young (read: born after 2011) your SSN can be trivially brute forced if an attacker knows where and when you were born, because those details were (before 2011) mapped onto 5 of the 9 digits in an SSN.
- dhosek 5y agoMore accurately where you were born and when your SSN was issued (my brothers who are four years older than me got their SSNs at the same time I did). Some of us older folks were born in an era in which you didn't automatically get an SSN along with the birth certificate. And then there are people who weren't born in the US so will have had their SSN not matching birth year. I also think it's less than 5 of the 9 digits that are reflected in this manner. That would not leave room for a lot of distinction in SSNs.
- kevin_thibedeau 5y agoThe first three digits are allocated in blocks to each state.
- gzer0 5y agohttps://www.ssa.gov/employer/stateweb.htm https://www.ssa.gov/employer/stateweb.htm I'm guessing this is not a good thing if I am under the [NOT ISSUED] category but am definitely in the issued category?
- throwawayboise 5y agoYou should assume your SSN is public anyway. There have been so many leaks, and it's not like a credit card where you get a new number if it is compromised.
- yoaviram 5y agoOr send them a CCPA data deletion request: https://yourdigitalrights.org/d/equifax.com https://yourdigitalrights.org/d/equifax.com. This will generate a request email. You can then change the wordings to indicate that you are interested in deleting your salary history data. Disclaimer: I'm one of the creators of YourDigitalRights.org.
- maratbn 5y agoGreat site, I just used your service to email "Right to Access Request (Section 110 of the CCPA)" to Equifax. Question / suggestion -- Have you considered monetizing by allowing lawyers specializing in CCPA / consumer privacy issues to advertise on your site?
- yoaviram 5y agoInteresting suggestion. We're not interested in advertising, but would consider collaborating with law firms that work in this space (consumer protection / privacy). I have a lot more to say about this so message me if you're interested.
- Larrikin 5y agoWhat are the potential ramifications for submitting a request on your site when you don't have residency in one of the listed areas?
- yoaviram 5y agoWorst case they wont deal with your request.
- xfz 5y agoNice site. You should probably update it for Brexit though. There are two GDPRs, for now.
- seanhunter 5y agoThe dropdown has options for "GDPR (UK)", "GDPR (EU)" or "CCPA" so they have actually already done this.
- mulmen 5y agoWhat are the consequences of doing this? What conclusion do HR departments draw about a person who freezes their employment information?
- chrisjc 5y agoJust also want to point out that freezing might result in certain parties that you do want to verify your employment from being able to do so. If you're in the process of buying a house, you might want to hold off on this freeze until your mortgage has been approved. Might be true if you re refinancing or buying some else that requires a significant loan. I'm not entirely sure if what I've stated above is true, but I've had to use theworknumber in the past when going through the mortgage process.