In August I wrote Like diamonds, cyber-stuff is forever, ending it with the comment, “Your little corner of the world in cyberspace includes the past, present and future…”

More proof stacked up this last week, and it’s far more worrying than the self-postings that are (somewhat) mitigated by claims of youth and/or naiveté.

Far more serious is Expunged Criminal Records Live to Tell Tales, on October 17th, that shines a spotlight on the fact that records from the justice system have a life of their own, “The problem often arises,” said Ms. Rodriguez-Taseff, the Miami lawyer, “because so many agencies have access to criminal records… Even though you have an expunged record, oftentimes a policing agency or a corrections facility allows private entities to gain access to it.”

As with resume and credit databases, once entered, data seems to migrate with a life of it’s own—ask anyone who has tried to remove their resume or straighten out incorrect credit info, let alone clean up identity theft.

And on the 21st came A Student’s Video Résumé Gets Attention (Some of It Unwanted), telling how a the video accompanying a resume was apparently leaked by someone inside UBS, and spun out of control across the web and into the real world. The applicant says “… he may have lost his chance to work on Wall Street, and added that he may not succeed in securing a financial job at all.”

So, what does all this mean to individuals and business? A lot, but here are what I see as the four main points.

• There needs to be far more education of users regarding the lack of privacy and the migration of data—and it needs to be done in compelling, easily understood terms.
• Companies need to rethink where to draw the line when evaluating background checks.
• Does it matter a decade or more later that someone did wild things in high school?
• If so, which things matter?
• How should the intervening “good behavior” be weighted?
• Whose responsibility is it to double-check the checkers?
• Companies must strengthen internal confidentiality. It takes very little to ruin a street rep and breaking candidate trust is one of the fastest. Those that don’t assure confidentiality can look forward to the duel results of
  
• far fewer candidates to choose from; and
  
• more legal difficulties from those that are leaked.
• Based on the power of the lobbying interests, waiting for any kind of solutions from Washington is likely a waste of time.

Whatever happens in years to come, it’s certainly going to prove interesting, to say the least.

This entry was posted on Monday, October 23rd, 2006 at 10:51 am and is filed under Business info, Communication, Culture, Hiring, Motivation, Retention. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed.
You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.