Pre-Employment Background Checks Can Protect Against Identity Theft

A recent article in the Cornell Daily Sun announced that 45,000 people are exposed to identity theft now that someone stole a university owned laptop computer.   Neither the names nor the social security numbers were not encrypted, making it easy pickings for even your garden variety identity thief.  The names on the list were those of students, faculty, staff, and alumni.

That’s convenient as the names on the list are not necessarily limited to impoverished students, although it would be difficult to say with a straight face that many Cornell students are particularly impoverished.   Although, with the economic downturn, you never can tell.  But then there are names of notable faculty and of course the alumni who as graduates of Cornell University have probably gone on to relative affluence.   So the stelaing of 45,000 names for possible identity theft becomes the happy hunting ground for these particular thieves.

We shouldn’t blame Cornell.  In fact the United States government has lost computers with vital information.   The Department of Agriculture once left open a portal where ambitious thieves had access to thousands of names of people associated in some way with that branch of government.   State governments and private corporations also leave names and social security numbers lying around.

The thing is in this rotten economy, people will resort to desperate acts.  Identity theft is high on the list of nefarious enterprises, especially with the recession.

There are ways to determine if you are a victim of identity theft.  Of the more obvious, if you are notifed of late bills for credit accounts you never opened, then that’s a sure hint that someone stole your identity.   Running your credit reports for all three agencies and checking to see if there are credit accounts listed that are unknown to you, is a good ounce of prevention.   Running your social security trace to see if there are other persons associated with your name is always a helpful background check.

If you are employer, it is vital to be sure the person you are considering for employment is not working on someone’s identity.   As odd as it seems, it happens on a fairly regualr basis.   Undocumented workers use social security numbers that were either stolen or given to them by friends and associates.   It is not all that uncommon to see multiple names on a pre-employment social security trace.

As an employer, don’t rule out the possibility that someone can find employment under an assumed name only to rob you of your proprietary information and then disappear without a trace.   Their showing identity if not enough, as counterfeit identity can be purchased in many parks and on many street corners around the country.   With the economy on the downturn and not many jobs available, false identity documents can now be had for a bargain.

So do your best to prevent theft of your identity.   And for employers, check them out before you hire.