A letter published on the Cleveland.com website criticizes a U.S.-based background screening firm for laying off local workers in the Ohio area in March of 2012 and “offshoring” both jobs and the personal data of American consumers collected for background checks outside of the country. The full text of the letter, written by Katharine Sarlog, a former employee of the company who was recently laid off, is available by clicking here: Katharine Sarlog letter. (more…)

According to a report from the Associated Press (AP), a Minneapolis, Minnesota-based Consumer Reporting Agency (CRA) that performs employment screening for businesses will close two offices in South Dakota by the end of the year and move those jobs to new sites in Arizona, India, and the Philippines. The AP reports that the company, one of the largest background screening suppliers in the country, says the closings in Aberdeen, South Dakota and Mitchell, South Dakota are due to restructuring and will affect approximately 140 workers. The AP story is the latest case of a large U.S. background screening company “offshoring” the processing of background checks to foreign countries. (more…)

According to a new survey on the use of social media sites by employers to evaluate job candidates from CareerBuilder®, the largest online career site in the United States, nearly two in five companies – 37 percent – use social media sites such as Facebook, LinkedIn, and Twitter to research job candidates. An InfoGraphic of the survey, which included more than 2,000 hiring managers and human resource professionals in the U.S. across industries and company sizes, is available at: http://cb.com/HQUCWt. (more…)

The Federal Trade Commission (FTC) has issued a final report – ‘Protecting Consumer Privacy in an Era of Rapid Change: Recommendations For Businesses and Policymakers’ – outlining best practices for businesses to protect the privacy of American consumers and give them greater control over the collection and use of their personal data, according to an FTC press release. The FTC also recommends that Congress consider enacting general privacy legislation, data security and breach notification legislation, and data broker legislation. The report, which expands on a preliminary report the FTC issued in December 2010, is available at: http://www.ftc.gov/os/2012/03/120326privacyreport.pdf. (more…)

To alert U.S.-based employers and job seekers about the potential dangers caused by background check firms “offshoring” Personally Identifiable Information (PII) to countries such as India and the Philippines, Employment Screening Resources (ESR) is offering a new whitepaper on the subject. The whitepaper written by ESR founder and CEO Attorney Lester Rosen is titled ‘The Dangers of Offshoring Personally Identifiable Information (PII) Outside of United States’ and details the hazards of sending PII to counties that are well beyond the reach of U.S. privacy and identity theft laws. The complimentary whitepaper is available at: http://www.esrcheck.com/Download/. (more…)