Subscribe to the Privacy Headline RSS feed | Subscribe to the Privacy Headline feed via EmailBNA INSIGHTS: Incipient Legislative Trend Toward ‘Credit Privacy’ Compels Restraint in the Use of Credit Checks for Employment Purposes
July 2, 2010 in Privacy & Security Law Report · Leave a Comment
The collision of two tectonic trends is spawning a new form of employee privacy right with potentially significant implications for every business that handles personally identifiable information (PII). On the one hand, privacy and human resources professionals, seeking to implement legislative and regulatory directives to safeguard PII and otherwise mitigate risk, are subjecting their organizations’ own employees and the employees of vendors who access PII to increasingly rigorous background checks. By way of illustration, one recent study reported that 70 percent of respondents conducted background checks on more than 80 percent of new hires, and another recent study found that 60 percent of respondents conducted credit checks on at least some job candidates. On the other hand, the Foreclosure Crisis and the Great Recession have left millions of Americans—many of whom are desperately searching for employment—with a materially damaged, if not destroyed, credit history.
