Release Employment Records

Apple Farmer

Can our company release the I-9 and W-4 records of employees, provided this information is being supplied only to another company when our employees handle the agricultural products of the other company?

What restrictions, if any, should we impose when we release this data?

The background for this question is that companies are concerned about bio-terrorism and are requiring background checks on everyone who comes in contact with their agricultural products.

mwild31

I don't have much experience in this area - other than performing simple background checks on our delivery drivers, but I have a question before talking about legal stuff - why would they request that information (I-9's/W-4's) rather than just having the employees sign forms stating the employee's consent to a background check?

Apple Farmer

The employees work for our company. We handle and store fruits and vegetables for other companies. These companies are concerned about bio-terrorism so they want to do their own background checks on our employees.

I think that we will handle this by having each employee sign a consent for us to turn over records to certain other companies but I wanted to get ideas on whether this is necessary or even a good idea.

mwild31

Providing a company with your employee's W-4 or I-9's won't give them (the other companies) the security they are hoping to gain. W-4's - just tell you how much to take out in taxes (legal name, etc.) and I-9's are for proof of eligibility & identity to work in the US - not whether or not someone was in prison/jail for criminal activities. Also, these forms are not something that I would part with willingly - it usually takes a subpeona or some other formal request from a law enforcement agency to part with the information. There are many issues involved here - a minor one involves how companies maintain/destroy employee records that contain SSN's in WA State - I think a call to your employment attorney is probably in order. Good luck!

Don D

I wouldn't release those documents to anyone else. Those are business forms specific to the operation of the employer only and would serve no legitimate purpose if released to anyone else. They would not serve any purpose related to a background check anyway. There is entirely too much sensitive/confidential information contained on those business forms. Neither An I-9 nor a W-4 has any relationship to bio-terrorism or the prevention thereof.

hrbanker

We occasionally have to request background information on temporary employees before we can give them access to company/customer records. In these instances the temp agency gives me a recap of the background check they did. I am doing "due diligence" in verifying that the checks were done, and have to trust that the temp agency personnel did them correctly.

Rather than give out SSN's, dates of birth and other private information, maybe you can come to an agreement with the company to provide them some assurance that the proper checks were done.