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| The Basics | Is your boss spying on you?
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For a fee, specialized companies will report any brush you have with the law -- and your employer can fire you with virtually no consequences.
By Liz Pulliam Weston
Think of it as the background check that never ends.
Instead of just reviewing your criminal history once before offering you a job, your employer now can monitor you 24/7.
Verified Person, a company founded by former Apple Computer CEO John Sculley, has unveiled a criminal database that will notify employers of any misstep by workers, even after they've been hired.
Verified Person touts the service as an essential tool to help employers reduce fraud, theft, workplace violence and other ills. For as little as $1 per employee per month, the company will scan the county-level databases where most criminal records appear and report whatever level of infractions the employer specifies, from major violent felonies down to misdemeanors or simply any arrests. About 100 employers, with work forces ranging from 80 employees to 60,000, have signed up so far.
In many cases, employers can fire workers based on what they find. Most employees in the U.S. are "at will," which means their company can fire them for virtually any reason, or no reason at all.
What's more, thanks to a 2003 change in federal law, some key protections afforded by law to you in a pre-employment background check aren't required of post-hire investigations:
- Employers don't have to notify you in advance.
- Employers don't have to get your written consent.
- Employers don't have to give you a copy of the report made on you, or tell you which company supplied it (although they do have to give you a general idea of what the report said).
Your employer doesn't need any reason to suspect you of misconduct to set the background bloodhounds on your trail.
Related news and commentary on MSN Money
Reputations are hard to repair
Am I the only one feeling a chill here?
Apparently not. The idea of continuous computerized background checks upsets a lot of privacy and workers rights groups. While this innovation may give employers the sense that they're reducing workplace problems, it also leaves employees vulnerable to unfair firing or to being denied promotion over petty offenses and troubles that may have no bearing on their job performance -- if the information is even accurate.
Anyone who's dealt with an error on a credit report has a sense of how big databases can be, simply put, wrong.
"We get quite a number of complaints about background-check problems," said Beth Givens, head of San Diego's Privacy Rights Clearinghouse. "We've talked to people whose lives have been destroyed, literally, by erroneous records and criminal identity theft."
Kimberly Chamberlain of Jacksonville Beach, Fla., said she's a victim of the latter. A relative who was arrested in four states used Chamberlain's maiden name and driver's license number instead of her own. Over time, Chamberlain said, she's learned how to deal with the false arrest warrants. But she wasn't prepared earlier this year when her new boss and a human resources representative confronted her about "her" criminal past.
Chamberlain had started the job as a budget analyst only a few days before. She said she tried to tell the human-resources rep about the identity theft, but "I couldn't get a word in edgewise." Chamberlain believes she would have been fired on the spot if her boss hadn't intervened and suggested Chamberlain be allowed to bring in documents the next day proving her innocence.
Chamberlain did, but the damage had been done. Several of Chamberlain's subordinates had seen her being marched into the office, and Chamberlain said she relived the ugly encounter every time she saw the human-resources rep in the hallway, which was frequently.
Chamberlain wound up quitting the job a few days later and went to work for a shipping company.
"I lost credibility. I was so traumatized," Chamberlain said. "I felt violated."
And she wonders how someone less prepared would have fared. Chamberlain had paperwork from police departments documenting the identity theft. If she hadn't known about the theft until the confrontation at work, she said, she might not have been able to respond in time to avoid being fired.
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MSN Money's editorial goal is to provide a forum for personal finance and investment ideas. Our articles, columns, message board posts and other features should not be construed as investment advice, nor does their appearance imply an endorsement by Microsoft of any specific security or trading strategy. An investor's best course of action must be based on individual circumstances.
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