Two years ago, the Pacific Northwest College of Art offered novelist Lois Leveen a teaching job where she would help encourage critical thinking among students. The problem was the college did not want her to do too much critical thinking when it came to protecting her privacy.
The author of several novels including Juliet’s Nurse, Leveen had one last obstacle before she could teach: she had to authorize a sweeping background search.
Most people ignore the fine print when facing this final employment hurdle, but Leveen gave the matter a lot of thought. She agreed that a school should know if potential employees have criminal backgrounds, but objected to an open-ended search into the future set out in this language:
“I understand that the Company may rely on this authorization to order additional background reports, including investigative consumer reports, during my employment without asking me for my authorization again as allowed by law.”
The fine print also said the background search company could gather information from past or present employers; learning institutions, law enforcement, courts, the military, credit bureaus, testing facilities, motor vehicle records agencies, as well as “all other private and public sector repositories of information; and any other person, organization, or agency with any information about or concerning me.”
Leveen expressed her concerns to the faculty member overseeing the hiring process. “I don't disagree with the relevance of the criminal background/prior sexual offender status check for teachers,” she said. “I have nothing to hide, but I certainly also have no desire to authorize anyone to violate my right to privacy in any way they may ever see fit no matter what.”
Novelist Lois Leveen, who said no to what she viewed as an overly broad employment background check... [+]
Nandini Ranganathan, chair of the Department of Liberal Arts, responded: “All the state universities in Oregon and Washington, and many private colleges do this now. It is a way to protect the college from liability in case of a future lawsuit from a student or parent or other employee.”
“Perhaps this is not a policy that I necessarily agree with, but it does need to be consistently applied,” she continued.
Employment-related personal data remains one of the few areas in which individuals still have privacy protections, along with medical, financial and video rental data. Agencies that conduct such searches must provide a higher standard of accuracy than people-search sites and data brokers that have proliferated in recent years, and they need the consent of the job applicant.
Two years ago I met Mike Petrullo, who was then president and chief executive officer of HireRight, a leading company in what he estimated has become a $2 billion to $2.5 billion industry per year. He said his company -- which was not involved in Leveen's case -- did not maintain its own propriety database, but verifies details from other sources. “We take all that confusion and render it into something that is 99,9996% accurate, as best we can tell,” he said.
Petrullo also said that he believed it was a good idea to limit what personal information companies collect in the application process, which was exactly Leveen’s point.
“Very specific personal information that has no bearing on a person's ability to conduct their job and has no bearing on whether in fact they are going to be a good corporate citizen or promote a safe work environment… I don't think it's valid and I don't think people should have access to,” he said. “I think it breaches a privacy barrier, and that's just my personal opinion.”
Ultimately, Leveen paid the price for standing up to the system. Two weeks after she expressed her objections to a sweeping background check authorization, she received an email from Mark Takiguchi, Pacific Northwest College of Art’s academic dean. “I'm writing to confirm that we have withdrawn the offer to you to teach at PNCA in spring 2013,” he wrote.
I contacted Takiguchi for his perspective two years later and he said: "As I shared with Lois at the time, we follow Oregon law in its requirement to run background checks on teaching personnel. She chose not to return the form authorizing this process, and we would not operate in defiance of the law designed to protect students. "
Fortunately for her, Leveen makes enough money as a novelist that she could afford to lose the job. But the process she went though still troubles her.
“I was told to just sign and trust they wouldn't over collect, or sign and then try to change the policy, both of which suggest that no one really understands the legal extent of what they are requiring. Once signed, the data release cannot be undone,“ she said. “The idea that one can be forced to consent to data sharing in order to be employed is extremely troubling.”
