Dev.SN

Employment Applications and Your Personal Info

posted by janrinok on Sunday March 02 2014, @06:00PM   
from the you-know-that-you-can-trust-us dept.

SuperCharlie writes:

"I am in search of employment and ran across a bit of a dilemma that I would like some Soylent guidance. After applying for a job at CareerBuilder, I received a follow-up email which requested that I fill out their on-line application. The first field, mandatory, was Social Security Number as part of their initial screening process. My question for the community is, how would you deal with requests like this as the initial employment steps?"

• Privacy Act of 1974 (Score: 2, Informative) by Spook brat on Monday March 03 2014, @02:42PM

  by Spook brat (775) on Monday March 03 2014, @02:42PM (#10152)

  I'm late to the punch on this discussion, but keep in mind that U.S. Federal law has requirements for government agencies, at any level - local, State, or Federal - requesting your social security number. From the Pricavy Act of 1974 (5 U.S.C. § 552a [justice.gov]):

  Sec. 7(a) (1) It shall be unlawful for any Federal, State or local government agency to deny to any individual any right, benefit, or privilege provided by law because of such individual's refusal to disclose his social security account number.
  <snip>
  (b) Any Federal, State or local government agency which requests an individual to disclose his social security account number shall inform that individual whether that disclosure is mandatory or voluntary, by what statutory or other authority such number is solicited, and what uses will be made of it.

  re-formatted for clarity:
  government employers are required by law to inform [you]:

  • whether [SSN] disclosure is mandatory or voluntary
  • by what statutory or other authority such number is solicited
  • and what uses will be made of it

   

  This law may not directly apply to the employers you're dealing with if they aren't government, but it's a good set of questions to ask whenever someone asks for your number. If the answers are "it's voluntary; we just want it, its absence will delay processing; we'll use it to identify you as an applicant", leave it off. If the answer is "it's mandatory; company policy; we won't process your application without it", then decide how much you really want the job.

  Government agencies really do respect this, FYI; I recently had a background check run on me by a State agency, and they asked for my social. When I found out that it was optional I refused to provide it; that was the end of the discussion. I'm sure it might have made their job easier, but that's not my concern ;)

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