FACTA Act
JennyG
6 Posts
Hi, this is my first time here. As you can tell I'm working late trying to research something for my boss on the FACTA Act.
I think it has to do with companies that use consumer credit reports as part of their hiring process and disposition requirements.
We are a waste management/consulting firm (no Soprano jokes, heard 'em all) in VA with multiple sites in the eastern part of the U.S.
Any help anyone can give would be appreciated.
Thanks,
JG
I think it has to do with companies that use consumer credit reports as part of their hiring process and disposition requirements.
We are a waste management/consulting firm (no Soprano jokes, heard 'em all) in VA with multiple sites in the eastern part of the U.S.
Any help anyone can give would be appreciated.
Thanks,
JG
Comments
There was a recent thread on this, in which I posted, incorrectly that this had to do with eliminating personally-identifiable info. It actually has everything to do with how to dispose of it. Check out the SHRM website, it's on the front page.
I'll post more on it tomorrow. Stick around, you'll love the forum.
Gene
A paper shredder may be on the shopping lists of HR professionals looking to comply with the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) rule, effective June 1, on properly disposing sensitive financial and personal information.
The rule, proposed in April 2004, is a result of the Fair and Accurate Credit Transactions (FACT) Act, which was signed into law December 2003 as part of the battle against the growing crimes of consumer fraud and identity theft. In 2003, identity theft translated into nearly $48 billion in losses to businesses, nearly $5 billion in losses to individual victims and almost 300 million hours spent by victims trying to resolve the problem, according to the FTC.
“The rule does not address when you get rid of [the information], it just describes how you get rid of it,” says Katherine Armstrong, an attorney at the FTC.
It requires every employer with one or more employees to appropriately dispose of any documents—whether paper, electronic or other format—that contain consumer information derived from a credit report.
“If your employer conducts credit checks, background checks or maintains any type of consumer report on employees, when it comes time to purge your employees’ personnel files, you’ll want to ensure your organization complies” with the FACT Act’s Disposal Rule, according to a bulletin board posting from the Society for Human Resource Management (SHRM) Information Center.
“Personal information could be a telephone number, address or Social Security number,” Saundra Jackson, an information specialist for SHRM’s Information Center, writes in the May 23-29 “HR Solutions” column.
The rule does not include information that does not identify individuals, such as aggregate information or blind data, and it does not apply to a person obtaining his or her own consumer report or file disclosure, the rule says.
The rule does not call for specific reporting, recordkeeping or disclosure requirements and does not require a person “to maintain or destroy any record pertaining to a consumer that is not imposed under any other law,” according to the FTC’s final rule as published in the Federal Register.
The FTC does not specify how information must be disposed of, but it says that reasonable measures must be taken to protect against unauthorized access to or use of the information.
Shredding, pulverizing or burning paper records so consumer information is unreadable would be appropriate disposal methods, the FTC says. Disposal could mean going the “do-it-yourself” route with a personal shredder, or paying a vendor to do it for you, depending on the volume of records requiring disposal.
Information stored electronically, such as on computer discs or hard drives, could be overwritten or wiped clean using tools you can purchase or obtain for free on the Internet, or even, as the FTC suggests, by taking a hammer to the disc or hard drive containing the information.
Reasonable measures likely will require establishing policies, procedures and employee training for disposing of information properly, the FTC notes.
JG