During a typical employer background check – which more than 80 percent of U.S. businesses currently perform according to the Society of Human Resource Management (SHRM) – the job applicant voluntarily gives Personally Identifiable Information (PII) such as name, birth date, and Social Security number (SSN) – basically, everything needed to commit identity theft.

What most job applicants fail to realize is the likelihood that much of the PII collected during a background check will travel far beyond the security of U.S. privacy laws to a foreign call center or data warehouse with little to no standards for privacy protection. Why would a background check company offshore personal and secure data without permission from the rightful owner?

The most obvious reason is that the rightful owner of the Personally Identifiable Information does not even have to be notified when it is sent outside of the country, even though the protection of PII collected with background checks – or through an Applicant Tracking System (ATS) or Job Board System (JBS) – should be stressed given the importance of personal data privacy.

Still, many background check companies and ATS/JBS providers continue “offshoring” personal data to low-cost labor markets by using companies internationally to increase profits. While offshoring may help some U.S. background check firms and ATS/JBS providers lower costs, these activities bring great risk to the PII data of U.S. citizens in the form of identity theft.

Employee personal data can also be “repurposed” by background check companies and ATS/JBS providers to be used in another format or product, and also resold to skip tracers, lawyers, data aggregators, and marketing lists to be bought and sold again and again. The growing popularity of offshoring, repurposing, and reselling of PII data has led to identity theft and lost privacy.

Unfortunately, protection against identity theft through U.S. laws ceases to exist once PII is sent overseas by background check firms. While some countries outside of the U.S. have strong data and privacy protection laws, such as the European Union (EU) states, many places where information is sent offshore for processing have little or no practical identity theft protection.

As a result, U.S. citizens are unable to enforce their privacy rights overseas. It is neither practical nor cost-effective to access foreign courts, contact foreign police, lodge a complaint, or obtain assistance about identity theft. The lack of any meaningful protection once U.S. data is sent offshore by background check firms is a major hurdle in the effort to combat identity theft and to protect privacy.

Pre-Employ.com – recognized nationwide as one of the premier background check companies and employer service providers – is concerned with the privacy and protection of Personally Identifiable Information. It is Pre-Employ.com’s company policy and expectation that NO PII is to be resold, repurposed, or sent offshore for processing purposes without expressed written consent.

Pre-Employ.com also offers a “Personal Employee Information Protection Certification” where respondents answer the following five questions pertaining to data privacy and data security of PII:

• Has your background check/ATS/JBS provider suffered any breaches in data privacy or data security involving PII in the last 5 years?
• Does your background check/ATS/JBS provider “offshore” (send outside of the United States) PII data to a foreign land to be processed in any way beyond the jurisdiction of U.S. Privacy laws?
• Does your background check/ATS/JBS provider repurpose (convert for use as another format or product) PII data for other uses such as marketing purposes?
• Does your background check/ATS/JBS provider resell PII to skip tracers, collection agencies, lawyers, or marketing lists?
• Does the parent company or any subsidiaries of your background check/ATS/JBS provider resell information for marketing purposes or sell information for profit? 

If your background check/ATS/JBS provider is Pre-Employ.com, the answer to all of these questions is NO. For more information on data privacy, download our complimentary white paper "Your Employee Data, How To Prevent Its Reselling and Offshoring", or visit www.pre-employ.com, email info@pre-employ.com, or call 1-800-300-1821.

2009 SHRM Annual Conference & Exposition Attendees: Please visit Pre-Employ.com at Booth 1951 in Morial Convention Center, New Orleans, LA, from Sunday, June 28 to Tuesday, June 30! Thanks!

tahearn@pre-employ.com

Follow Pre-Employ.com on Twitter

*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!