Today, a vast majority of employers perform a background check of potential new-hires, and these applicants are required to supply them with their Personally Identifiable Information (PII). This includes their name, date of birth and Social Security number, which is exactly the data needed in order commit identity theft. In such a situation, virtually nothing exists to ensure an individual's data privacy.

Hidden danger

The typical job applicant is unaware that his or her PII may be forwarded to a data repository or off-shore call center, with virtually no consideration for privacy protection—minus the security that privacy laws in the United States provide. (Note that the European Union (EU) states are an exception in regard to this trend.) This can be done because there is no requirement to notify prospective employees when their personal information will be transmitted to a location outside our borders and it is not given the protection it deserves.

Currently, job candidates’ PII is often sent “off shore” to labor markets whose standards are lower than those prevailing in the United State, and the aim is to increase the employer’s bottom line. When this is done, little thought is given to the notion that handling the personal information in this manner means that these applicants are at great risk of identity theft.

Common practice

An employee’s PII is often “re-purposed” by various background screening companies, used in some other product or format, and then sold to a variety of customers who then resell the data numerous times. Today, this practice is a breeding ground for the loss of privacy and widespread identity theft.
The result is that there is no practical way for American citizens to protect themselves from identity theft overseas. The prohibitive cost makes it impossible for them to seek the assistance of foreign police, rely on foreign courts or file a legal complaint when their identity is stolen. Consequently, they are totally unprotected.

Where Pre-Employ.com fits in

As a major employer-service provider and background-check company, we aim to protect employee’s PII. With this in mind, we adhere to the policy that it is never to be repurposed, resold or sent outside the United States without your written permission. For additional information, view our Data Privacy webinar at http://www.pre-employ.com/Webinars/Data-Privacy-Webinars.aspx.

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Did you know that just about every digital copier manufactured since 2002 contains a Hard Drive? Just like the hard drive in your computer the copier hard drive keeps a record of data. Check out this video by CBS  (
>http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=y01xLquSIrc )

*We welcome relevant comments and questions from consumers, experts, and human resources professionals. Please do not submit comments with advertisements as they will not be posted publicly. Thanks for visiting our blog!

*We welcome relevant comments and questions from consumers, experts, and human resources professionals. Please do not submit comments with advertisements as they will not be posted publicly. Thanks for visiting our blog!

 A biology professor charged in the killings of three faculty members at the University of Alabama in Huntsville was initially a suspect in a 1993 attempted mail bombing of a Harvard Medical School professor and killed her brother in 1986 after firing a shotgun 3 times.

Amy Bishop Anderson and her husband, Jim, were questioned after a package containing two pipe bombs was sent to the Newton, Massachusetts, home of Dr. Paul Rosenberg, a Harvard professor and a doctor at Children's Hospital Boston, the Globe said, citing a law enforcement official. At the time, Anderson was working as a postdoctoral fellow in the hospital's human biochemistry lab.

Anderson is charged with capital murder in the Friday shooting deaths, making her eligible for the death penalty in Alabama. Authorities said she was attending a faculty meeting in a university building when she brandished a gun and shot six colleagues, killing three.

The mother of four was arrested as she was leaving the building, Huntsville Police Chief Henry Reyes said Saturday. A 9 mm handgun was recovered from the second floor of the building after the shootings Friday.

On Saturday, it was revealed that in 1986, Anderson, then 19, shot her brother to death in Braintree, Massachusetts. Authorities determined after an investigation that the shooting was accidental.

But Braintree Police Chief Paul Frazier said Saturday, "It is a far different story, I believe, than what was reported back then. I cannot tell you what the thought process was behind our releasing her at the time."

Anderson's husband, Jim, told CNN on Monday that federal investigators had gathered a dozen subjects in the attempted bombing, but "there were never any suspects. Never anyone charged, never anyone arrested."

"Then five years later, we got a letter from the ATF saying, 'You are in the clear,' " he said, referring to the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives.

Sylvia Fluckiger, a lab technician who worked with Anderson at the time, told The Boston Globe on Sunday that Anderson had a dispute with Rosenberg shortly before the bomb incident.

Fluckiger told CNN affiliate WCVB-TV in Boston, "Police interviewed her, and she told me about it. I really wondered if she may have had, you know, some more knowledge, although I'm not accusing her of anything."

Rosenberg was opening a package delivered to his home while he was away on vacation, but he saw wires and a cylinder inside and called police, the Globe reported.

"She was the suspect early on," the law enforcement official, who the Globe said had knowledge of the case, told the newspaper of Anderson. She allegedly was concerned that she was going to receive a negative evaluation from Rosenberg, the official said.

Jim Anderson told The New York Times the December 1986 death of his wife's brother, Seth, was accidental. He declined to comment when CNN asked him about the shooting Monday.

Frazier, however, said Saturday that an official involved in the case and still working for Braintree police told him that the teen had shot her brother during an argument. She fired a shot in her bedroom without hitting anyone, then argued with her brother and shot him, he said.

She fled the home after the shooting and was arrested after pointing a weapon at a vehicle near the house in an unsuccessful attempt to get the driver to stop. During the booking process, then-Chief John Polio called and told the officers to release her, Frazier said. He added her mother was then a member of the Braintree Personnel Board.

Reached by CNN, Polio, now 87 and retired, denied calling in that order, saying detectives told him the shooting appeared accidental and it was determined Anderson should be released to her mother. He said any link between Anderson's release and her mother's position on the board was "laughable."

Anderson's mother, Judith, did not answer her door Monday. Reached by telephone, she told CNN, "We're very distraught," and declined further comment.

A December 8, 1986, article in The Boston Globe said Anderson asked her mother how to unload a round from a 12-gauge shotgun and accidentally shot her brother while she was handling the weapon. The article cited Polio as the source.

The state police report on the incident, released Sunday by the office of Rep. Bill Delahunt, D-Massachusetts, is similar to the Globe's account. Delahunt was district attorney at the time; staffers said he was in the Middle East on Sunday and unable to comment on the case.

The 1986 report said Braintree police told state police investigators "indications were that Amy Bishop had been attempting to manipulate the shotgun and had subsequently brought the gun downstairs in an attempt to gain assistance from her mother in disarming the weapon" when it went off, shooting her brother in the chest.

In a December 17, 1986, interview, Anderson told authorities she "thought it would be a good idea if she learned how to load the shotgun in the house," according to the state police report. The young woman told police she was concerned for her own safety after the family home was broken into, although she previously had been afraid of the gun.

She said she got the gun and loaded shells into it, but was unable to get them out. Anderson said that while she was attempting to unload the weapon on her bed, it went off. She then took it downstairs to ask for help in unloading it, where the shooting occurred.

The police report said both Anderson and her mother said the shooting was accidental. Her mother told police she did not hear the earlier shot in her daughter's bedroom and "believed the house was relatively well soundproofed and that such a discharge would not necessarily be heard on another floor of the house."

Frazier said police records of the incident are missing. But Polio said, "There was no cover-up. Absolutely no cover-up and no missing records. The records were all there when I left. Where they went in the last 22 years and two police chiefs subsequent, I don't know."

Braintree Mayor Joseph Sullivan said Sunday that a review will commence to locate all materials associated with the shooting.

Anderson, who is known to students as Dr. Bishop, had been working at the University of Alabama in Huntsville since 2003 and was up for tenure, according to spokesman Ray Garner. However, authorities wouldn't discuss possible motives or whether the issue of tenure may have played a role in the shooting.

Garner said the university gives teachers six years to get tenure. Those who do not get it are terminated, he said.

Jim Anderson told CNN on Monday that his wife had been denied tenure and had appealed that decision and won, but she was still fighting to be granted tenure. She was frustrated with "the process," he said.

He told CNN earlier his wife had an attorney but would not say who it was, and he described her as a good teacher. He said Monday his wife wrote three novels, "medical thrillers." The couple does not own a gun, he said.

He said he last saw his wife briefly on Friday morning before she left for class. He said she was "loving, got along with everybody."

The family, he said, is devastated, and in "shock, bewilderment, wondering why."

He told the Times the pipe bomb incident is "one thing from the past I hoped would not be dredged up."

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 Missouri House OKs drug tests for public officials, some welfare recipients

Missouri's elected officials and many people who receive cash welfare benefits would start undergoing drug screening under legislation given first-round House approval Thursday.

Lawmakers, judges and other state officeholders would receive drug tests before taking office and every two years after that. The officials would pay for the tests, and refusing one would be considered an admission that they used a controlled substance without permission.

Likewise, work-eligible adults who apply and receive cash welfare payments would be tested if the Department of Social Services has a "reasonable suspicion" that the person is using drugs. Those who refuse or test positive would not be eligible for the cash benefits for one year. Their children could keep receiving benefits, but the money would need to be handled by a third party outside the household.

House leaders said Thursday that the drug tests would give taxpayers assurance that their money is not going toward drug use. They said not requiring elected officials to be tested would be hypocritical.

"We're not going to subsidize drug use by welfare beneficiaries," said House Speaker Pro Tem Bryan Pratt, R-Blue Springs.

The drug-testing requirement would apply to applicants to the cash-aid program called Temporary Assistance for Needy Families. It is designed to help low-income parents learn job skills and care for their children. More than 43,000 families consisting of 112,000 people receive benefits through the assistance program.

A single parent with two children receives $292 per month through the program, but must work or take job training courses for at least 30 hours per week.

Lawmakers approved the drug-testing bill 113-40 on Thursday, and it needs another vote before moving to the Senate. Lawmakers debated the bill for three days, but most of that discussion focused on drug screening for elected officials and the possible penalties for officeholders who fail tests.

Initially, the House legislation would have allowed people who test positive for drugs to complete a treatment program and still keep their welfare benefits. Lawmakers on Thursday removed that provision and lowered the threshold for the evidence needed to require drug tests.

Rep. Scott Dieckhaus said immediately cutting off benefits creates a strong incentive to not use drugs.

"We need to send them a stern message that they need to get off the drugs," said Dieckhaus, R-Washington.

Several Democrats expressed concerns about the process for determining who would be required to take drug tests. Rep. Jeff Roorda, D-Barnhart, called it "constitutionally repugnant" to only require suspicion before having welfare recipients submit to testing.

The legislation gives the Department of Social Services until July 2011 to develop its drug-testing policies. It requires the department to give lawmakers an annual report on the number of drug tests taken and the results of those tests.

Starting in October, Social Services Department employees who do not report suspected drug use or fraud by those seeking benefits would be fired.

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