<story><title>Ask HN: Is anyone else trying to opt out of Equifax WorkNumber?</title><text>On the heels of yesterday&amp;#x27;s bombshell:&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;news.ycombinator.com&amp;#x2F;item?id=33198708&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;https:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;news.ycombinator.com&amp;#x2F;item?id=33198708&lt;/a&gt;&lt;p&gt;First thing this morning I emailed TWNFreeze@equifax.com to request a data freeze as outline at:&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;employees.theworknumber.com&amp;#x2F;employee-data-freeze&amp;#x2F;&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;https:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;employees.theworknumber.com&amp;#x2F;employee-data-freeze&amp;#x2F;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;p&gt;But I&amp;#x27;ve not yet heard anything back.&lt;p&gt;This is only the initial first step in a process with unknown hoops to jump through, but first I must get the form to reply and submit the freeze request.&lt;p&gt;If I don&amp;#x27;t hear back by tomorrow morning I&amp;#x27;ll mail in the form, but my god this is frustrating to have to opt out of something I never consented to in the first place.&lt;p&gt;Parasites.</text></story><parent_chain></parent_chain><comment><author>Nextgrid</author><text>I’m not sure opting out is a good solution. Not only will Equifax still receive the data and will most likely still log it, but it doesn’t do anything to actually discourage this practice.&lt;p&gt;The only way to kill this, apart from government intervention (which has no chance of happening in the US) is to let the “free market” do it by rejecting jobs that leak your information to Equifax (and letting them know why). Ideally, do this all the way at the end of the interviewing pipeline so that they would’ve incurred significant costs as a result. You want companies to &lt;i&gt;lose&lt;/i&gt; money by using the service, as to remove the business case for it.&lt;p&gt;The objective here is to put pressure on employers not to leak employee data to scummy companies. If they start losing qualified candidates because of it they will reconsider the practice.&lt;p&gt;If you are in a good financial position and can afford to do so, resigning is also an option. Again make sure they know &lt;i&gt;why&lt;/i&gt; you are doing so.</text></comment>
<story><title>Ask HN: Is anyone else trying to opt out of Equifax WorkNumber?</title><text>On the heels of yesterday&amp;#x27;s bombshell:&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;news.ycombinator.com&amp;#x2F;item?id=33198708&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;https:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;news.ycombinator.com&amp;#x2F;item?id=33198708&lt;/a&gt;&lt;p&gt;First thing this morning I emailed TWNFreeze@equifax.com to request a data freeze as outline at:&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;employees.theworknumber.com&amp;#x2F;employee-data-freeze&amp;#x2F;&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;https:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;employees.theworknumber.com&amp;#x2F;employee-data-freeze&amp;#x2F;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;p&gt;But I&amp;#x27;ve not yet heard anything back.&lt;p&gt;This is only the initial first step in a process with unknown hoops to jump through, but first I must get the form to reply and submit the freeze request.&lt;p&gt;If I don&amp;#x27;t hear back by tomorrow morning I&amp;#x27;ll mail in the form, but my god this is frustrating to have to opt out of something I never consented to in the first place.&lt;p&gt;Parasites.</text></story><parent_chain></parent_chain><comment><author>_huayra_</author><text>Just for clarity and equanimity about this stuff:&lt;p&gt;- If you sign up to see your TWN data (which is just the usual KYC-type sign-up), you can generate a report and will likely see that no employer has pulled your data in the past 24 months (the most they give). Most people who work in tech don&amp;#x27;t seem to have any inquiries registered for TWN when they check their report after hiring (from the handful of anecdata I have at hand).&lt;p&gt;- You don&amp;#x27;t have to mail anything in. They have some hokey secure email thing that is basically a link to a webform upload. Is it a weird process? Yeah, but it&amp;#x27;ll work just give it time.&lt;p&gt;- Opting out won&amp;#x27;t prevent partners that &amp;quot;subscribe&amp;quot; to TWN from sharing your data with them; it will only prevent partners from having access to your data until you unfreeze it. My current employer has been dutifully reporting my comp every month despite it having been frozen.</text></comment>