Human Resources: Destroy Employee Data

If you gather employees’ personal information from credit reports you now are required to destroy the data before discarding of it, according to regulations that went into effect earlier this month.

The Fair and Accurate Credit Transactions Act, which was passed by Congress is December 2003, states that employers must shred or burn paper documents or “smash or wipe” computer disks that have the employees’ information. This refers only to data you’ve collected on employees by running credit reports on them.

According to a report in USA Today (“Employers must shred personal data,” June 1, 2005), the regulations are part of governmental efforts to reduce identity theft, a rapidly worsening problem in the United States.