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I’m not sure opting out is a good solution. Not only will Equifax still receive the data and will most likely still log it, but it doesn’t do anything to actual
by Nextgrid 4y ago
I’m not sure opting out is a good solution. Not only will Equifax still receive the data and will most likely still log it, but it doesn’t do anything to actually discourage this practice.
The only way to kill this, apart from government intervention (which has no chance of happening in the US) is to let the “free market” do it by rejecting jobs that leak your information to Equifax (and letting them know why). Ideally, do this all the way at the end of the interviewing pipeline so that they would’ve incurred significant costs as a result. You want companies to lose money by using the service, as to remove the business case for it.
The objective here is to put pressure on employers not to leak employee data to scummy companies. If they start losing qualified candidates because of it they will reconsider the practice.
If you are in a good financial position and can afford to do so, resigning is also an option. Again make sure they know why you are doing so.
- danielrhodes 4y agoAt a previous place I worked, the company was not even aware this information was being shared with Equifax. The payroll provider would share this data by default unless it was explicitly turned off.
- TedDoesntTalk 4y agoThis. It’s often ADP, Paychex, etc that is sharing the data. Did they get permission from the companies? I don’t know.
- gareth_untether 4y agoThanks to this comment I searched for QuickBooks and Equifax. QuickBooks signed up their customers to automatically to share data with Equifax: https://quickbooks.intuit.com/learn-support/en-us/employees-and-payroll/invasion-of-privacy-by-intuit-and-quickbooks/00/919319 https://quickbooks.intuit.com/learn-support/en-us/employees-...
- tothrowaway 4y agoI just emailed Gusto to find out if they are sharing data with Equifax. I did not see a way to opt out in the employer or employee interface.
- Invictus0 4y agoI work at a company using Gusto and Equifax did not have my data from my current employer, you should be ok.
- toomuchtodo 4y agoKudos to Gusto for not following the lead of less scrupulous payroll providers.
- tothrowaway 4y agoGusto never responded. That is quite incriminating to me (you can't plea the 5th in the marketplace).
- dustyharddrive 4y ago(sorry, dumb question) How would you find out?
- Nextgrid 4y agoYou’d explicitly ask your HR department in writing, and get your Work Number report from Equifax (you can get it, right?) to make sure your employer isn’t mistakenly/maliciously sending data over despite claiming not to.
- happyopossum 4y agoBoth of those are post-hire actions, and assume that you will get an accurate response from either party.
- NegativeLatency 4y agoYeah I asked at my last place and they were basically like “too bad it’s not changing”
- Nextgrid 4y agoIf you are able to resign, it will make them reconsider this decision.
- NegativeLatency 4y agoI did, for various reasons including that
- kelnos 4y agoTrue, but presumably the next time you are interviewing for a job, you can ask during the interview process, and then terminate the process of they tell you they do it. Preferably after they've wasted a bunch of time and money on your interviews.
- 4y ago
- factsarelolz 4y agoDoesn’t have to be just your employer. It could be your bank or financial institution when you request credit and they have to verify your employer and income. They bounce it off credit institutions, which capture compare and sell.
- FerdSlav 4y agoI ended up going down the rabbit hole looking into this practice and discovered companies exist advertising the ability to get any US citizens employment/compensation history for a nominal fee. An example of one such company: https://www.truework.com/ https://www.truework.com/
- CogitoCogito 4y ago> The only way to kill this, apart from government intervention (which has no chance of happening in the US) is to let the “free market” do it by rejecting jobs that leak your information to Equifax (and letting them know why). This will _only_ change through government intervention. The “free market” won’t solve this.
- dylan604 4y agoThe "free market" created this
- easrng 4y agoThe "free market" is great at creating problems.
- teitoklien 4y agoThe free market is great at creating solutions. Something planned economy based governments are incompetent at. Evil humans sometimes make bad solutions in a free market. Let’s stop blaming systems and start blaming humans for their corrupt & greedy behaviour. Fighting about systems only helps corrupt politicians topple each other from place of power. Hence the funding that goes into obsession over capitalism, socialism, communism debates.
- auggierose 4y agoSystems not taking into account that humans can behave in a corrupt and greedy way are just bad systems. We can totally blame those systems.
- jwarden 4y agoThat’s like saying “people” are great at creating problems. It is a true but unbalanced and unhelpful statement, since people are also great at solving problems.
- kelnos 4y ago
- kevin_thibedeau 4y ago> apart from government intervention (which has no chance of happening in the US) New York has already banned employers from purchasing pay history. All it takes is other states to get their act together many of which already have weaker protections regarding history.
- aliqot 4y agoIn my opinion, banning the purchase would little, but what could be more effective is to ban the collection of it.
- cercatrova 4y agoYou won't know about it until after you've been hired though. Stopping Work Number reporting helps before being hired.
- Nextgrid 4y agoThat’s even better; the cost of an employee resigning after being hired is much more than one dropping out of the hiring process. This gives you significantly more leverage should you resign or even threaten to resign as a result.