Some of the data in the little-known database, created within an Equifax-owned company called The Work Number, is sold to debt specialists, financial service companies, and other organizations.
“It’s the important privacy violation in our time, and it’s legal and no one recognizes it’s going on,” said Robert Mather, who runs a small trade background company named Pre-Employ.com. “It’s like a secret CIA.”
Despite all the data Americans now share on social media and websites, and all the data we know organizations collect on us, one piece of data is still sacred to most people: their salaries. After all, who would post their pay as a status update on Facebook or in a tweet?
But salary data is also for sale by Equifax through The Work Number. Its database is so comprehensive that it contains week-by-week paystub data dating back years for many individuals, as well as other kinds of individual resources-related information, such as health care provider, whether someone has dental coverage and if they’ve ever filed an unemployment claim. In 2009, Equifax said the data reported 30 percent of the U.S. working group, and it now says The Work Number is combining 12 million records annually.
How does Equifax get this sensitive and secret information? With the active aid of thousands of U.S. businesses, including many of the Fortune 500. Government agencies designating 85 percent of the federal civilian population, including workers at the Department of Defense, according to Equifax and schools also work with The Work Number. Several of them let Equifax tap directly into their data so the credit bureau can always have the latest job information. In fact, these businesses actually pay Equifax for the privilege of giving away their workers’ personal information.
Equifax turns around and sells some of this data to third parties, including debt agents and other financial services companies.
Equifax refused to be interviewed, but in an emailed statement to News, it confirmed that it shares “job data” with debt collectors and others, and said it does so in agreement with Fair Credit Reporting Act guidelines.
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