The Work Number is an American employment verification database created in 1985 by Talx Corporation.
It also collects length of employment, job titles, "location information", and "other kinds of human resources-related information, such as health care providers, whether someone has dental insurance and if they’ve ever filed an unemployment claim.
[11][12] The director of policy and advocacy at the Privacy Rights Clearinghouse stated, "I think [this] is something that would be offensive to many people.
"[11] On 8 October 2017, Brian Krebs reported that The Work Number exposed the salary histories of employees of tens of thousands of U.S. companies to anyone in possession of the employee's Social Security number and date of birth.
[13][14] For roughly half the U.S. population, both of the latter pieces of data are known to be in the possession of criminals, following Equifax's May-July 2017 security breach.