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Data privacy has never been more important, with various laws and regulations like the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) in the EU and data privacy laws right here in the United States. Most recently, the California Consumer Privacy Act (CCPA) that went into effect in 2018 and the California Privacy Rights Act (CPRA), a ballot measure approved by California voters in November 2020, not only allows consumers to opt out of selling their personal information, it also gives them the right to prevent businesses from sharing their information. Do your employees know that your vendor of choice might be selling their data? No one talks much about it, but it is definitely happening. And legislation is moving in the direction of putting that decision in the hands of the consumer, your employee, so we have to be prepared to follow the often very complicated legislation around privacy.

Then, consider how much time HR spends on verification for employee income and employment verification requests. This is a service we must provide for employees when they are doing things like applying for credit, buying a home, renting property or making a large financed purchase. It also includes former employees applying for a new job within seven years (for background screening), government requests for state, local or federal aid, and child support. Delays on our end can make these things complicated for our workforce, but how do we stay on top of this process and keep employee data safe at the same time?

This is where Vault Verify comes in. I have to say that I haven’t seen anything like this before. Vault Verify is free to clients and it shares a portion of the revenue derived from commercial requesters with you each month, making HR a profit center. That isn’t a typo – Vault Verify pays you to use their service. And the results for its clients are dramatic: increased productivity, more accurate verifications and decreased liability.

Here’s how it works:

• Employers contract with Vault Verify and grant them API access to the HRIS system.

• All people requesting verification are routed to Vault Verify, who in turn validates the requestor, pulls the relevant data, and configures/sends the report back.

• The requester pays Vault Verify for the service. Vault Verify in turn shares the revenue with the employer.

Typically, the information we need for verification is in our HRIS and we’re responsible for protecting it so that the chance of employee data breaches (Equifax is one that we’ve all heard about) is low. But Vault Verify eliminates file feeds and data storage outside of our HRIS, works in real-time so that even our newest employees’ data is verifiable, and reduces the potential for data exposure by 99 percent. 

Data Security and Privacy Made Easy

Historically, in this space, what we would do is have our payroll company or one of our HR team members build a file feed and if we wanted it outsourced, we would send every employee record every single week. As soon as we closed payroll the vendor would store that information and wait for a verification request to come in. All of this data would be commingled with thousands of other employers and that leads us to a high potential and target for data breach.

Think about how you’re currently using employee data for verification purposes, or “permissible use” in all of the instances I mentioned above. Do we consider collection agents, credit card companies, pawn shops, credit reporting agencies (if not consented to by the employee), banks with pre authorized credit card offers “permissible use?” No! Vault Verify doesn’t think so either and it never shares or sells data to banks or credit card companies, or any credit agency without employee authorization. This is my favorite feature, to be honest. For those of us behind the scenes in HR (or in any field), the amount of data that is shared without a person’s permission is a little frightening. We’ve become accustomed to a sort of impasse with credit reporting agencies, giving up our own information in order to achieve something like buying a home or applying for credit, but to really get a look at how much data is shared with these agencies is overwhelming.

Better Reporting and Visibility

Transparency and trust go hand-in-hand. Employers must consider how to handle data, who can access the data, and how to give employees the ability to see what we’re doing on their behalf in real time. Because Vault Verify’s admin offers real-time visibility into the verification report, if an employee calls your HR department and asks if their mortgage lender completed its verification, your admin team has the visibility to the exact date and time the verification request was completed, and see the actual output report presented on your behalf.

Vault Verify’s output reporting has unlimited configurability, mirrors the client compensation model, and is accessible 24/7 to give verifiers what they want when they need it, so you and your team can save time on the requests and employee inquiries about them.

Interested in more information? Visit Vault Verify to learn how they can help you streamline your employment and income verification requests, quickly and securely.

FTC Disclosure: We received compensation for mentioning and reviewing the product listed above as part of one of the services we offer our clients. Regardless, we only recommend products or services I use personally and believe will be good for my readers. We are disclosing this in accordance with the Federal Trade Commission 16 CFR, Part 255: Guides Concerning the Use of Endorsements and Testimonials in Advertising.