Equifax's 'Work Number' Tracks Your Employment History Like a Credit Score
The Work Number: credit score but for your employment history – by Equifax
Equifax's The Work Number is a database that verifies employment and income for lenders, employers, and government agencies. It can speed up decisions on loans, jobs, and benefits, but it also raises privacy concerns. Users can now log in without an employer code, view their data, see who accessed it in the last 24 months, and request a free data freeze.
We recognize that your information on The Work Number is more than just data. It’s the story of your hard work.
- helpfulmandrill
A vent: why is it any of your business why I had X months without work? Maybe I had enough money not to work for a bit and felt like doing something different. Why am I obligated to continuous labour even when I don't need it. Why am I subject to your judgement for not renting out my life at every possible moment?
- jwally
I get the concept and use case - but equifax has a reputation on par with klan members and pedos...at least be self aware enough to know to conceal your true form! Phillip Morris became Altria or whatever.
Plus, I can verify for employers that I am a real human with a real employment history snd I can prove it...by giving them my SSN and Mother's Maiden name? What stops a bad guy from speed rushing the dark web, registering these things en masse and selling access to DPRK?
- Liftyee
The US is rapidly catching up with China in the field of authoritarianism.
- cultofmetatron
I see no way this could go wrong at all.
- ventana
When you apply for a software job in the US and go through a background check, most of your former employments are verified through The Work Number. As an employee, I'm not aware of a way to opt out of this data collection, and I assume if there is a way, it will surely make the future background check harder.
Now that they allow to look at your personal report, I went ahead, registered and requested a copy. This is just wow.
First of all, I noticed that American Express casually requests my report a few times per year. Well, I guess, if I lose my job, they will know soon! Besides Amex, the only other requests were the background checks when I actually applied for jobs, so everything else is fine.
But you know what else is there? All my fucking paychecks for all companies I used to work for here in the US. Nowhere in my employment agreements I did explicitly agree to my paycheck information to be transferred to Equifax, and yet, here we go.
Looking forward for the moment when all this data is leaked, because, you know, Equifax has some history [1].
[1]: https://www.ftc.gov/enforcement/refunds/equifax-data-breach-...