The Integrity News
Vol. XII No. 7
ISSN 1081-2717
February 18, 2003
"objective risk management services"
February 18, 2003
Terrorist infiltration has raised the topic of
I.D. Verification to TV News Bulletin status.
You may have seen the special TV spots this
past week advising businesses to check the
identities of all of their employees.
We have been advising our clients to use I.D.
Verification for years. For reasons in addition
to protection from terrorist infiltration, you
need to know if your candidate is really who
they claim they are.
Social Security Number verifications, I.D. Verifications,
and Personal Credit Histories, all come from the national
credit system.
In the case of The Integrity Center, Inc., we also have
each request for any of these three reports "washed"
against the current quarter's master tape from the Social
Security Administration. That way, if the SSN has never
been issued, or if death benefits have already been paid,
or any of a total of 17 classes of fraud are working, you
are informed by a printed warning in a big starred box at
the top of your report.
To better understand the system, visualize a Personal
Credit History that all fits on one page. Roughly the top
half of the page is background information on the individual,
and of that, the topmost several lines contain their name,
their SSN, a report of the year the number was actually
issued, and in what state the number was issued.
So, if you purchase a Personal Credit History, you
automatically get the full background information on the
individual, which is their I.D. Verification, and within that,
you automatically also get the first few lines which is the
person's Social Security Number Verification.
Turning that reasoning around, if you purchase the SSN
Verification, you do not get all the background information
that you would get if you purchased the I.D. Verification.
Further, neither do you get all the financial information
contained in the bottom half of the one page Personal
Credit History that we asked you to visualize.
You must keep in mind that the amount of background
information in a person's credit file is a function of:
(1) how long they have had their SSN, (2) their age, and
(3) how active they are in the national credit system.
The latter activity is instigated by renting housing, making
credit purchases, renting cars, applying for jobs, and many
other things.
If you don't want, or don't need, the financial information,
that is fine, but the I.D. Verification gives you much more
information about the person than the SSN Verification.
In these times, you need to consider using it. After all, it
does contain the SSN Verification in its first few lines, and it
is also "washed" against the Social Security Administration's
current quarter's master tape.
Now, all of this anticipates that you will take the time to
compare the information in the I.D. Verification with:
(1) what your candidate has provided on your Job Application,
(2) what you see on your photocopy of their Driver's License
or State I.D. Card that you have made, and (3) with your other
information such as what you hear in an interview, what you
hear from references, and other sources of information. And,
as was mentioned above, the wealth of information in each
person's I.D. Verification will vary as a function of their age
and lifestyle. So, you even want to think about their lifestyle.
The kinds of information in an I.D. Verification, can include:
any aliases on file; their most recently reported full address,
and frequently, prior addresses; Date of Birth; their most
recently reported employer, and frequently, prior employers;
their telephone number; and frequently, other identification
information that has accumulated in their national credit file.
You need to realize that you have become the first line of
defense against commercial terrorist infiltration. You didn't
need this, but you have to take the time to be sure you are
right. Also, you want to report payroll deductions correctly to
the Federal government, you want your unemployment and
Worker's Compensation reports to reflect the real person,
you want to include the real person in your benefits programs,
and you want your company to get the training and experience
that they are paying for.
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