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Comment by majormajor | Hacker News Reader

If these companies learn everything about everyone, what happens if what they discover is that most people have their own little problems and health issues and craziness? The truly awesome people with absolutely nothing wrong with them? Good luck finding them!

As far as the migraine bit goes: there are already some sorts of medical discrimination that are illegal to use for hiring in the US, though I don't know exactly what is and isn't currently allowed. But analyzing someone's FB posting to try to find out that they suffer from migraines seems like the sort of thing that violates the spirit, if not the letter, of the law and would quickly get shot down. And the Affordable Care Act is already taking steps towards making it illegal for insurance companies to abuse this sort of information. If you don't like the scenario in the article, keep that in mind next time you wonder about whether government regulation is ever appropriate.

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"If one would give me six lines written by the hand of the most honest man, I would find something in them to have him hanged." - Cardinal Richelieu (a/k/a Armand Jean du Plessis, Cardinal-Duc de Richelieu et de Fronsac)

The fundamental problem is that the order of operations is likely to be "what is the narrative we would like to portray", followed by "how may we select from the available information to convey that narrative".

The present tendency toward counterfactuality and/or selective factuality in various narratives (notably political, also concerning various other social and scientific matters) doesn't particularly encourage me.

As long as they don't put it in writing, there would be no case. People are not hired or fired for illegal reasons all the time. You just don't state those reasons.

If it is due to blatantly obvious handicaps, that's a different story. But good luck proving you we're passed over because the employer figured out you have headaches.

So this hypothetical Narrative Data company would have a largely-illegal business plan, and nobody would notice? There wouldn't be any whistleblowers? People would be willing to contract their HR stuff out to them?

In my view, there's a pretty bright line between the described business and today's background check companies.

There is illegal and un-ethical. Sometimes there is a fine line but often most people involved realize what that line is and they hang out just outside of it without stepping over.

Imagine a meeting with HR. Company is racist. They never really made it into an official police of course but just by joking or sort of non verbal communication they figure out that other higher ups hate certain races. They will talk about so and so's personality "not matching".

It is fairly easy for them to figure out an euphemism used to signal this or that other person needs to be let go because their race isn't "right". Let's call it "personality reasons" or say "restructuring reason". It doesn't matter as long as it never officially put into writing.

It would be an uphill battle to successfully sue for discrimination. One would need to compile historical data and show that people of a particular race have been consistently not hired or laid off once hired.

Not at all far-fetched: http://www.thestar.com/article/297666

Interesting. I was just theorizing and wasn't aware of any actual recorded cases of this, but I am not surprised.

  >So this hypothetical Narrative Data company would have a largely-illegal business plan, and nobody would notice?

What are they doing that's illegal? You aren't applying for a job with them so they aren't the ones who passed you over for "somebody who's a better fit".

Didn't LinkedIn originally offer HR recruiters some version of their system which didn't show photos so that they wouldn't be worried about the liability of violating US discrimination laws by using headshots to bypass minorities? This suggests that HR departments would fear the purchase of legally prohibited data types.

Until everybody at the hiring meeting is interviewed by the EEOC or the meeting notes are subpoenaed.

Personally I think these laws are probably fundamentally flawed for a while now.

Individual instances can be difficult to prove, but a systematic effort to discriminate based on these things should not be hard to detect within a decently sized company.

Unfortunately, the courts in many countries don't accept this as evidence of discrimination.

Especially given this hypothetical super data miner. If companies can use Narrative Data to avoid hiring people who suffer from migraines, then it should be even easier to use Narrative Data to show that they're intentionally doing so.

I suspect you are correct, if you had this data on everyone you would find that everyone had issues. Now some would have more issues than other but it wouldn't be like you had some sparkling clean alternative choice. At the end of the day the costs our blogger is suggesting are influential are, in the large, smoothed over the entire population.

Now folks who've done really stupid things? They might have problems. There is a certain 'maturity' bit that flips somewhere (not uncommonly on marriage or first child) which selects for longer term benefit behaviors over short term benefit behaviors. I could easily see a management/individual contributor choice swing on that data.

But the article plays to the insecurities that are common in people which is sad.

Of course, they won't have data on everyone — just young(ish) people. The result might be reverse age discrimination.

And then that becomes its own problem, "Uh Chuck, we can't find out anything about you (ed: as if :-)) so we're not sure you are who you say you are ..."

The part about not hiring a young woman because there's a high chance that she is or will be pregnant is already illegal in the U.S.

The sad thing about it is that, employers most usually deny to explain the reason why an application is denied. It can easily be attributed to 'cultural fit' or 'lack of experience'.

Some companies prohibit even viewing a candidates Facebook profile picture in order to stay within the realm of US legal compliance. I'm not expect in this area but I think a lot of what is described in the article is illegal, as it relates to hiring here.

Now, I'd be ready to discuss Gen Y's real nightmare of watching their cool high school friends get old and fat..

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