Quid pro-quo, Show me yours and I'll show you mine

Now jobs and conventional employment are subject to problematic approaches in securing ones personal identity.

It used to be common place to require a social security number to be placed on the very employment applications a job seeker would apply on, this was used to give to the Human Resource department the tax data for payroll to provide to the IRS to make the appropriate tax deductions. In modern days, this can be a dangerous president as many different people could handle these paper applications, which not only have the social security number written directly on it but also with a full name, work history, current residence possibly a drivers license number and maybe even a date of birth. This data is the crux of what is required to apply for credit cards and purchasing things on credit.

Savvier applicants are writing "will provide social security number upon receipt of employment" however some employment kiosks REQUIRE this number just to begin the employment process (KMart, 99-cent stores and Walmart are just a few that does this). But some employers go even further and REQUIRE background and criminal checks on applicants which in-turn this MANDATES the requirement of a personal Social Security Number as a primary ID to check these types of records.

This is disheartening for the majority of applicants to these firms. One would think that a fair exchange of this type of data would be in order. All things being equal, would it not be fair to require the personal Social Security Number and back ground data of all the people involved with handling this data to do the background screening? Or even the personal social security number of the CEO and the board of directors of said company? After all, if they insist on doing back ground checks, drug screenings, etc., on you you should in-turn be able to do back ground checks, drug screenings, etc. on a company that one would work for? Not all companies are straight players, Worldcom, Enron, Countrywide, etc. where seemingly on the up and up but now the former employees know better and are impoverished as a byproduct of not doing the appropriate research.

One would be hard pressed to actually ask and receive any type of sensitive data from an employer or from the people that would handle a background investigation or a drug screening. To date, I am personally unaware of any prospective applicant that was able to request (and actually acquire) such information.

Businesses and corporations that would scrutinize a prospective candidate for employment should be looked at with great suspicion. After all, if they are adamant about conducting such a rigorous screening process without allowing an equally rigorous screening process to be conducted by a prospective employee then trust issues are evident and if they have these issues before one is even hired by them, then one could expect their internal management to be problematic at best and a company to avoid.