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Comment by vulcan01 | Hacker News Reader

You don't need to. Your employer can give this info to whoever they want, and many give this data to Equifax or one of the other credit agencies.

Also, you might give your bank employment details, and your bank will most likely send that info to a credit agency as well.

There's not much of an escape.

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Opt out of the system as soon as you possibly can. No mortgage, no bank, no address, no traditional job.

Or, combine with other people to fight the ridiculous system? Even if you manage to pull off a life like this, you're limiting yourself significantly and leaving many people behind.

No mortgage and no job are achievable.

You kind of need a bank, if you go around with cash the police or other criminals can just seize it.

You also may want an address to live somewhere, I'd rather live in a house than in a car.

Have a mailing address that is in the same city but not your residential address.

If I bundle my personal information together into an nft and then buy that nft, could I issue the credit agency with a DMCA takedown notice?

Aren't NFTs essentially just file hashes/signatures that can be associated with a public/private key pair on a blockchain? If so, the link between the NFT and the key pair might be solid (as in cryptographically secure) but the link between the NFT and its "underlying asset" (which might be copyrightable) seems flimsy.

That being said, since both NFT ownership and our legal systems rely on consensus and majority opinion, it's not hard to imagine a corrupt society in which the opinion of judges is disregarded in favor of blockchain consensus.

Edit: you might be joking but it's an interesting question nonetheless because it highlights how various systems compete for legitimacy :)

IANAL

The NFT would be completely irrelevant here. Basically I assume you are claiming copyright over your salary and personal information. Unfortunately you can't trademark facts, so this approach isn't viable.

Try it and let us know!

What exactly do employers and banks stand to gain from sharing this information? Is it an exchange of information for money?

For employers it offloads employment and salary verification. Instead of having to pay someone to answer verification calls all day they just upload the data to The Work Number and let them handle it.

Are employers obligated to provide employment and salary verification?

If they didn't their employees would be pretty pissed when they're unable to get a mortgage.

So go to HR and say "please sign this form that says I make $X" rather than preemptively broadcasting it?

Here's how I imagine this goes down:

ADP Rep: "Hey, we have an exciting new feature to offer you! We partner with the worlds premiere credit and employment reporting agency to eliminate the hassle of salary and employment verification."

VP, HR: "Go on..."

ADP: "If you opt in to this innovative program, you'll never again have to respond to your employees' lenders or landlords. 97% of banks participate in this program. Instead of them asking their applicant—your employee—for paperwork that you have to deal with, they come direct to the source automatically. Again, this is at no additional cost. It's included with our Premium Payroll Plus offering. Interested?"

HR: "Yeah, of course. One less thing I have to deal with"

ADP: "And the best part is you'll then qualify for a substantial discount on our partner's Employment Data System. Rest easy with unlimited verification reports for all your prospective new hires"

HR: "Anyone ever turn this down?"

ADP: "Almost never."

This is exactly what happened when I applied for a mortgage here in Ireland. Seemed fine.

Banks and organizations that are considering lending you credit (i.e. buying a house / car / getting a credit card) can know if you're getting in over your head with finances and might be higher risk to repay. They can set their interest rates and fees appropriately.

Although all that said for any major loan the bank is going to ask you to provide detailed proof of all income, assets, etc. They likely use this service as a check to make sure you aren't trying to overstate your income.

From what I recall at my time there, banks use it as supplemental source of creditworthiness validation. The government also pays for the data to verify eligibility for welfare and other social services. Employers...I don't think were a major revenue source although I wouldn't be surprised if some used it to inform their salary thresholds.

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