View the entire newsletter for more articles: 2021 – NJAC County Biz – February
by Kevin Kuhn, Strategic Account Executive for EQUIFAX, Inc.
Across the US, employers are seeing the volume of income and employment verification requests going up. Historic low interest rates, increased applications for government assistance programs, and the need for employees to find new and additional employment in the wake of the COVID-19 pandemic are just a few factors driving the increase.
Unfortunately, fraudsters see opportunity in this volume increase, and with many HR teams working remotely, the possibility to exploit process gaps grows. As an employer, protecting employee data is paramount. A task as seemingly simple as responding to verification requests from banks, mortgage companies, background screeners, and government entities may be adding unnecessary risk for your organization. For example, if you are not confirming the identity of the inquirer and the validity of the request, you could be unintentionally passing information to a bad actor. And, as with most social engineering or phishing scams, it might not be one particular data point that causes liability, but in combination with other data the resulting action to your employee can be harmful.
Some employers go to great lengths to validate verification requesters, requiring verifiers to submit requests on company letterhead or requesting a copy of the application the employee has completed, for example. But, by far, one of the easiest ways to help eliminate this threat is to outsource verifications handling to a specialty credit reporting agency (CRA).
Reputable CRAs offer employers and their employees more peace of mind, as CRAs are obligated by law to follow practices that help protect employee data. CRAs 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, and provides guidelines on what can be shared and for what reasons.
How The Work Number® Can Help
Over one million employers have chosen to outsource their verifications to The Work Number® from Equifax, a specialty CRA compliant with the FCRA. Taking this step allows employers to refocus their internal resources and helps remove some of the inherent risk associated with the verification process.
The Work Number helps to protect employers and employees in the following ways:
- Permissible Purpose – Verifiers must certify they have a permissible purpose, as defined by the FCRA, for requesting the verification of an employee’s personal information
- Credentialing – Equifax validates the legitimacy of each verifier client before they can access The Work Number
- Authentication – Individual user level credentials provide insight into not only the verifying organization, but also the individual agent behind every data request
- Periodic Audits – Equifax performs random audits of its verifiers to help ensure proper use of data
- Data Security – With more than $1.25B invested in security and platform enhancements across Equifax in 2018-2020, protecting client data is a top focus of Equifax
Learn more how Income and Employment Verifications from The Work Number can help offer increased efficiencies and improved employee data protections— all at no cost to employers or employees—today.