Is anyone else trying to opt out of Equifax WorkNumber?

I’m not sure opting out is a good solution. Not only will Equifax still receive the data and will most likely still log it, but it doesn’t do anything to actually discourage this practice.

The only way to kill this, apart from government intervention (which has no chance of happening in the US) is to let the “free market” do it by rejecting jobs that leak your information to Equifax (and letting them know why). Ideally, do this all the way at the end of the interviewing pipeline so that they would’ve incurred significant costs as a result. You want companies to lose money by using the service, as to remove the business case for it.

The objective here is to put pressure on employers not to leak employee data to scummy companies. If they start losing qualified candidates because of it they will reconsider the practice.

If you are in a good financial position and can afford to do so, resigning is also an option. Again make sure they know why you are doing so.

Just for clarity and equanimity about this stuff:

- If you sign up to see your TWN data (which is just the usual KYC-type sign-up), you can generate a report and will likely see that no employer has pulled your data in the past 24 months (the most they give). Most people who work in tech don't seem to have any inquiries registered for TWN when they check their report after hiring (from the handful of anecdata I have at hand).

- You don't have to mail anything in. They have some hokey secure email thing that is basically a link to a webform upload. Is it a weird process? Yeah, but it'll work just give it time.

- Opting out won't prevent partners that "subscribe" to TWN from sharing your data with them; it will only prevent partners from having access to your data until you unfreeze it. My current employer has been dutifully reporting my comp every month despite it having been frozen.

I successfully opted out around a year ago, but “opting out” just meant freezing my report.

I had asked my employer (a certain fruit company) to stop sending my information in the first place, but they refused.

How to freeze your work number (copied from reddit):

Create an account using one of your employers (old or new, it doesn't matter). If you have problems with this step, then skip to step 2 and ask the CSR for help with this.

Call the customer service at 866-222-5880 (FYI, it helps to call early in the morning when most people are asleep) Choose option 2 for "Report a problem..."

Tell the customer service rep (CSR) that you want to freeze your SSN on TWN. Verbally verify that this will keep 3rd parties from accessing the info. At this point, the CSR may try to direct you to the online form, but you need to be firm and say that you want to complete the process over the phone. If they still try to direct you to the online form, say that you will not be satisfied until the process is completed over the phone. I know this can be uncomfortable for some folks to challenge someone like this, but it's the easiest way.

At this point, the CSR will ask for personal information including your account name (created in step 1) SSN, DOB, address, email

The rep will send you a one-time code using the method of your choice (phone, text, email, mail). I chose text message. Tell them the code verbally over the phone

Congrats. Your SSN is now frozen on TWN, preventing 3rd parties from access without your authority. You will receive a confirmation email

Optional

8) If your CSR was friendly and helpful, ask to speak with their manager and give them a little praise. Pull a reverse-Karen

I prefer this method because it prevents you from having to mail or email any documents and you get instant confirmation and a case number to review your status. The whole process took like 10 minutes over the phone.

If anyone is looking to fill the form:

https://simplePDF.eu/editor?open=https://assets.equifax.com/...

The document you load and the data you fill in are never sent to the server [1] (you don’t have to trust me, you can just disable internet after having clicked on the link above)

Disclosure: I’m the developer behind SimplePDF

[1] https://simplepdf.eu/privacy_policy

Same experience here. They ignored my initial email a couple weeks ago, and I will have to follow up. What a joke, these byzantine corporate communication standards are meant to frustrate the public into obsequiousness

You should also get your employer to not send your payroll data to Equifax. Opting out of Work Number only shuts off one way Equifax sells this information. They also collect the address on payroll and sell that database to law enforcement and skip tracers. You cannot opt out of that, to the best of my knowledge.

Please post updates as they slowly happen! I tried to do this a few years ago with my employer, but only GET the data (a freeze wasn’t a thing yet). Equifax stonewalled and told me I had to go through my employer to get my data. HR was purposely unhelpful and I got frustrated and gave up.

Apparently this[0] is a possible way of opting out by phone but can't speak to it personally as I haven't tried it

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=27703091#27705428

How might opting out of something like this affect your future ability to get financing for something, approved for a loan, or even allowed to I dunno, rent a car, open a bank account, start electricity/internet service somewhere, or rent an apartment?

Not trying to scare anybody away from opting out (I'd absolutely love to as well) but having been through something similar in the past and being denied access to basic services to live in the world as the "hidden" punishment for it, I wonder if something similar might emerge here should you do so...

Anyone have any insight on that, one way or the other?

I asked my payroll department to have ADP opt me out of sending my data. Afterwards when I logged in to generate a personal report, there was no longer any data.

I’ve had trouble getting my company to opt everyone out though…

Clickable links:

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=33198708

https://employees.theworknumber.com/employee-data-freeze/

equifax is still around after leaking enough information to steal the identities of half of america?

I was able to opt out by emailing them with pictures of my id, but it took two weeks to receive confirmation of it by mail IIRC.

I think you'd be better off posting to r/antiwork with a well researched explanation as to why it's problematic. Ideally with a call to action (for example, can you automate the opt out such that it spams the submission queue?).

You don't make a difference. Many people can make a difference.

I'm on the 2nd hoop, which is submitting personal information and documents on their website.

Can this be restricted by a state law? Credit reporting fells under federal jurisdiction, but I wonder if this is something that outside of credit reporting and can be heavily limited by state initiatives.

I've rejected a job for pulling similar things. I'm not sending photos and copies of my passport to any third party.

I suspect that you will may become unhireable by any company that relies on this service.

Can a TWN data sharing opt out be undermined by signing a background check agreement?

I'm already too used to the fact that anyone has all my data. It's a fight against windmills in a hopelessly broken and corrupt system. However, see the benefits of it. You can request payroll information of your coworkers and use it to ask for a salary increase.

Looks like the US needs something like GDPR.

I successfully froze my data in equifax’s system. I had to call them

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