Help Protect Employee Data with Outsourced Verifications

As an HR professional, it's your priority to protect employee data. You may not realize it, but responding to employment and income verifications may be adding unnecessary risk for your company. For example, if you respond too quickly to assist employees, then you may not be confirming the validity of the verification requests. Is the person or organization requesting verification legitimate or have a valid purpose to obtain the information? Indeed, failing to confirm the requestor may mean a company is putting its employees at risk of identity theft or fraud. Bottom line? It’s increasingly important to confirm the identity and the purpose of a verifier.

Verifications: Knowing Who and Why is Essential to Protecting Employee Data

A recent poll conducted by Equifax found:

• 25% of employer respondents only confirm the identity of verifiers when an employee asks them to do so.
• Another 18% said they were unsure what their company did to validate inquiries.

Your company can take several steps to feel confident that a verifier is who they claim to be. These options include:

• Contact the employee to confirm the verification request is valid
• Require verifiers to submit verification requests on formal company letterhead
• Obtain a copy of the pertinent application
• Independently confirm the verifier name and phone number
• Outsource verifications to a specialty credit reporting agency (CRA)

Why Outsource to a CRA?

Outsourcing verifications to a CRA offers employers and employees some peace of mind.  CRA activities are subject to the requirements of the Fair Credit Reporting Act (FCRA). This federal legislation helps ensure fairness, accuracy and privacy of the personal information contained in CRA files.

• Permissible Purpose - Verifiers must certify to CRAs that they have a “permissible purpose" for requesting a verification of an employee’s personal information contained in the files of a CRA, which is considered a consumer report.
• Users of Consumer Reports - CRAs must take reasonable measures to verify the identity of a potential user of consumer reports before providing information.

How The Work Number Can Help

The Work Number® database helps to protects employers in the following ways:

• Periodic Audits - Equifax performs random audits of its verifiers to ensure proper use of employer contributed data including both permissible purpose and consumer consent.
• More than 375,000 established verifiers have been credentialed to access The Work Number database.
• As a result, there is a wide array of verifiers that will simply and securely receive verifications for your employees.

Learn more how Income and Employment Verifications from The Work Number database can offer increased efficiencies and employee data protections.