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I am not sure how long this has been going on...but this just does not seem right to me...
"The Equifax credit reporting agency, with the aid of thousands of human resource departments around the country, has assembled what may be the most powerful and thorough private database of Americans’ personal information ever created, containing 190 million employment and salary records covering more than one-third of U.S. adults.
Some of the information in the little-known database, created through an Equifax-owned company called The Work Number, is sold to debt collectors, financial service companies and other entities..."
Location: East of Seattle since 1992, 615' Elevation, Zone 8b - originally from SF Bay Area
44,551 posts, read 81,085,957 times
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Mine gives them out every year. As a public agency we are subject to public disclosure, and several local newspapers have all 2,000+ of us with name, title and salary listed in a searchable database. Not a big deal. You give it to people every time you apply for a
loan or credit card, rental apartment. They can all sell it too.
I am not sure how long this has been going on...but this just does not seem right to me...
"The Equifax credit reporting agency, with the aid of thousands of human resource departments around the country, has assembled what may be the most powerful and thorough private database of Americans’ personal information ever created, containing 190 million employment and salary records covering more than one-third of U.S. adults.
Some of the information in the little-known database, created through an Equifax-owned company called The Work Number, is sold to debt collectors, financial service companies and other entities..."
Such a thing is not too surprising when you think about how much of our health information is shared with insurers, so why not salary? Personal information on the average American citizen is bought and sold to the highest bidder.
Such a thing is not too surprising when you think about how much of our health information is shared with insurers, so why not salary? Personal information on the average American citizen is bought and sold to the highest bidder.
Yet people are still on the Facebook kick. A good number of them surrender data for the whopping price of nothing.
Mine gives them out every year. As a public agency we are subject to public disclosure, and several local newspapers have all 2,000+ of us with name, title and salary listed in a searchable database. Not a big deal. You give it to people every time you apply for a
loan or credit card, rental apartment. They can all sell it too.
Okay- as far as public employees are concerned, I can understand the title and salary being listed because they are being paid with tax dollars, but why is publishing a person's name and violating their privacy necessary (especially for rank and file employees rather than upper management level people)?
So Officer Jane Jones makes $36,200 a year and Garbage Truck Drive Joe Smith makes $25,300 a year. How is attaching names to those salaries providing a public service and not just violating personal and personnel information? The positions and salaries should be sufficient information to ensure they are in line with the marketplace and not like the abusive situation with the town in California where the salaries were so far over the top while the budget was mismanaged.
Fortunately, not all newspapers choose to violate the employees privacy (many of whom are subscribers and probably former subscribers after the tabloid exploits them), and while the ones who do technically and legally can (at this point), it's an unscrupulous practice, and it also smells of desperation on the part of the newspapers in light of declining readership.
Not to mention that an annual salary can be an extra piece of information a crook could use (if they got some other sensitive data) to open credit accounts, etc. that the tabloid news is exposing these employees to.
I understand about public agencies...but I have a feeling this is going on at private companies as well.
So what's the outrage about then?
Invasion of privacy is invasion of privacy. If it's not an invasion of privacy for public sector employees, which apparently it's not as everyone is all rah rah when that information is posted on the Internet for anyone to browse and searchable by name, I just really cannot see how it's an invasion to provide that information at a cost to debt collectors who actually do have a reasonable interest in having it.
Invasion of privacy is invasion of privacy. If it's not an invasion of privacy for public sector employees, which apparently it's not as everyone is all rah rah when that information is posted on the Internet for anyone to browse and searchable by name, I just really cannot see how it's an invasion to provide that information at a cost to debt collectors who actually do have a reasonable interest in having it.
Plain and simple...it's an invasion of privacy. There are many unscrupulous low life debt collection agencies out there who do not need access to this type of personal information. If this information is sold or given, then the employee should be notified "beforehand"...
Plain and simple...it's an invasion of privacy. There are many unscrupulous low life debt collection agencies out there who do not need access to this type of personal information. If this information is sold or given, then the employee should be notified "beforehand"...
Been going on for years. And while I agree with you, I'm merely surprised at the sudden outrage like it's a new issue. First they came, I suppose.
Quote:
First they came for the communists,
and I didn't speak out because I wasn't a communist.
Then they came for the socialists,
and I didn't speak out because I wasn't a socialist.
Then they came for the trade unionists,
and I didn't speak out because I wasn't a trade unionist.
Then they came for me,
and there was no one left to speak for me.
Been going on for years. And while I agree with you, I'm merely surprised at the sudden outrage like it's a new issue. First they came, I suppose.
Very appropriate "philosophical" response However, you can count me as one of those who did not know that "this particular activity" was going on...
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However, you can count me as one of those who did not know that "this particular activity" was going on...
