ATLANTA - Most Americans carefully guard the details of their paychecks, sharing this information with only the boss, the spouse and the Internal Revenue Service.
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But these days, someone else is in on the secret.
The Work Number, a little-known product of Atlanta-based Equifax, captures the salaries and job titles of 46 million Americans every time they collect a paycheck. That represents about a third of the U.S. work force.
For the past decade, The Work Number has been warehousing and selling this information to lenders and employers who want to verify incomes or conduct background checks.
Even if you've never heard of The Work Number, chances are good that it has heard about you.
The company won't disclose exactly how many individuals appear in its database. But it says it has 165 million employment records that cover both current workers and former employees.
"That is quite a repository," said Elizabeth De Armond, an expert on privacy law who is an assistant professor at Chicago-Kent College of Law.
S ome privacy experts say that simply storing the confidential information of so many people in a central database is troubling.
Executives at The Work Number say they carefully safeguard the data, which also includes Social Security numbers.
The Work Number said it takes a number of steps to limit access. Users must be credentialed by The Work Number, a process that requi res they provide detailed information about the organization that will use the data.
The organization must also promise it will buy reports only for a legal purpose, such as a lending or hiring decision.
The user must know the worker's Social Security number to access a report. A customer who wants salary information must supply The Work Number with a code that can only be obtained from the worker.
Simpson said The Work Number is also heavily protected against hackers who might attempt to access the information.
"Because of our due-diligence process, it's actually more secure for the consumer" than getting the information from a corporate human resources department, Simpson said.
She said the process also ensures that information about employees is delivered in a fair, objective way.
The Work Number
Some of the participating employers at www.theworknumber.com:
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