For those too young to understand the “Magnum” reference in the title, “Magnum, P.I.” was a hit TV show in the 1980’s starring Tom Selleck as Thomas Magnum, a private investigator (or PI) in Hawaii. The “PII” refers to “Personally Identifiable Information” – such as an individual’s name, birthday, and Social Security Number – that all businesses, including background check companies, are entrusted to protect.

Unfortunately, many jobseekers undergoing background checks could use a man of Magnum’s talents to track down the PII they give away in their efforts to find employment. According to reports from the Society of Human Resource Management (SHRM), more than 80 percent of U.S. businesses currently perform some form of pre-employment background check before the actual hire. In a typical background check, applicants agree to give third party background check companies their PII – basically, all the information needed to commit identity theft.

What most job applicants – and even some Human Resources (HR) professionals – do not realize is that there is a good chance that much of the PII collected during a background check will end up far beyond U.S. privacy laws in a foreign call center or data processing location where there is little, if any, privacy protection. Why? Because a number of background check companies routinely “offshore” PII from clients – without informing them of their intentions – in order to cut costs and increase profits.

“Offshoring” is the business practice of transferring jobs, services, and data to low-cost labor markets by using companies internationally to complete tasks formerly performed in house. While offshoring data may help background check firms lower costs and increase profits, these activities bring great risk to the PII of U.S. citizens in the form of lost privacy and identity theft. Although many U.S. state and federal laws protect data privacy, these protections – as a practical matter – cease to exist once background check companies send PII out of the country.

While some countries outside of the U.S. have strong data privacy protection laws, many places where information is sent offshore for processing have little or no practical identity theft protection. As a result, American job applicants have no ability to enforce their privacy rights overseas. With little practical or cost-effective access to foreign courts, it is extremely difficult for a U.S. consumer to contact a foreign police department to lodge a complaint about identity theft or to obtain assistance.

The lack of any meaningful protection once PII is sent offshore is a major hurdle in the effort to combat identity theft and to protect privacy. Some U.S. companies – like Pre-Employ.com, a nationally recognized background check and employer service provider – are taking a stand against offshoring. Pre-Employ.com believes good data privacy and good data security equals good business. Our company policy dictates that we:

• Do NOT practice offshoring personally identifiable information (PII).
• Do NOT resell data to skip tracers, lawyers, or marketing lists.
• Do NOT repurpose data for other uses like marketing purposes.
• Do NOT use foreign nationals abroad to access cases or calls.
• Are NOT owned by a credit bureau or by data aggregators.

To learn more about Pre-Employ.com’s background check, privacy, and PII policies, download our FREE white paper Your Employee Data, How To Prevent Its Reselling and Offshoring, visit www.pre-employ.com, email info@pre-employ.com, or call 1-800-300-1821.

tahearn@pre-employ.com

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