Employment kiosks – small, mobile ATM-like booths – are increasingly being used for screening job applicants. All too frequently, the kiosks do not come equipped with the most important thing of all: a privacy policy.

In order to have a meaningful privacy discussion about kiosk issues, it is important to first address some general questions.

Unicru, a Beaverton, Oregon company dominates the kiosk space. Unicru says it processes approximately one job application per second during the average U.S. workday. All totalled, Unicru processes about 6 million job applicants per year, and has processed a total of more than 19.5 million candidate applications. In 2002, Unicru achieved record revenues of $21.1 million and was recognized as one of the fastest- growing companies in the U.S. It says that it is the leading provider of hiring management systems.

• Kiosks and the retailers that use them must prominently post OECD-compliant privacy policies. The privacy policy should cover the third party running the kiosk as well as the retailer handling the applicant data.

• Employers must take responsibility for FCRA compliance.

Do not submit your SSN or date of birth to a kiosk or a Web site that does not have a privacy policy posted prominently prior to the time this information is requested of you. If you do, you truly lose control of this information.
If you have any arrests or suspended convictions in your background, you may want to think twice about agreeing to an “instant” or “national” background check online. Some (but not all) of these national credit checks that are conducted through accessing proprietary databases online pick up and report information that should not be reported, such as suspended convictions.