Intuit to Share Payroll Data from 1.4M Small Businesses With Equifax (krebsonsecurity.com) 25
Financial services giant Intuit this week informed 1.4 million small businesses using its QuickBooks Online Payroll and Intuit Online Payroll products that their payroll information will be shared with big-three consumer credit bureau Equifax starting later this year unless customers opt out by the end of this month. Krebs On Security reports: Intuit says the change is tied to an "exciting" and "free" new service that will let millions of small business employees get easy access to employment and income verification services when they wish to apply for a loan or line of credit. "In early fall 2021, your QuickBooks Online Payroll subscription will include an automated income and employment verification service powered by The Work Number from Equifax," reads the Intuit email, which includes a link to the new Terms of Service. "Your employees may need to verify their income and employment info when applying for things like loans, credit, or public aid. Before, you likely had to manually provide this info to lenders, creditors or government agencies. These verifications will be automated by The Work Number, which helps employees get faster approvals and saves you time." An Intuit spokesperson clarified that the new service is not available through QuickBooks Online or to QuickBooks Online users as a whole. Intuit's FAQ on the changes is here.
"The way I read the terms, Equifax gets to proactively collect all payroll data just in case they need to share it later -- similar to how they already handle credit reporting," said Citrano, who is founder and CEO of Acquicent, a company that issues non-fungible tokens (NFTs). "And that feels like a disaster waiting to happen, especially given Equifax's history." In selling payroll data to Equifax, Intuit will be joining some of the world's largest payroll providers. For example, ADP -- the largest payroll software provider in the United States -- has long shared payroll data with Equifax. But Citrano said this move by Intuit will incorporate a large number of fairly small businesses. "ADP participates in some way already, but QuickBooks Online jumping on the bandwagon means a lot of employees of small to mid-sized businesses are going to be affected," he said. Why might small businesses want to think twice before entrusting Equifax with their payroll data? The answer is the company doesn't have a great track record of protecting that information. In 2017, Equifax had a massive data breach that exposed the personal and financial details of 145.5 million Americans.
If customers do not want this new service, they must update their preferences and opt-out by July 31, 2021. Otherwise, they'll be automatically opted in. You can opt out by signing in to QuickBooks Online Payroll, navigating to Payroll Settings, selecting the pencil and unchecking the box in the Shared data section, and saving your changes.
"The way I read the terms, Equifax gets to proactively collect all payroll data just in case they need to share it later -- similar to how they already handle credit reporting," said Citrano, who is founder and CEO of Acquicent, a company that issues non-fungible tokens (NFTs). "And that feels like a disaster waiting to happen, especially given Equifax's history." In selling payroll data to Equifax, Intuit will be joining some of the world's largest payroll providers. For example, ADP -- the largest payroll software provider in the United States -- has long shared payroll data with Equifax. But Citrano said this move by Intuit will incorporate a large number of fairly small businesses. "ADP participates in some way already, but QuickBooks Online jumping on the bandwagon means a lot of employees of small to mid-sized businesses are going to be affected," he said. Why might small businesses want to think twice before entrusting Equifax with their payroll data? The answer is the company doesn't have a great track record of protecting that information. In 2017, Equifax had a massive data breach that exposed the personal and financial details of 145.5 million Americans.
If customers do not want this new service, they must update their preferences and opt-out by July 31, 2021. Otherwise, they'll be automatically opted in. You can opt out by signing in to QuickBooks Online Payroll, navigating to Payroll Settings, selecting the pencil and unchecking the box in the Shared data section, and saving your changes.
Should be opt in not opt out (Score:5, Insightful)
The default for sharing personal data should be "no". I get the impression that it is the employer who decides, not the employee.
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Yes. This needs a lawsuit and an injunction. The idea is preposterous as it stands.
gtfo (Score:2)
Why the hell should I even care what this guy says? Why is his opinion relevant at all?
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Florida man reads terms of service... film at 11.
I guess it's better than sharing with haxx0rs (Score:3)
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So which party do you see as legitimate? It could be argued that the hacker trolls are at least more honest about their intentions.
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Intiuit itself is a scam! there is no reason (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:Intiuit itself is a scam! there is no reason (Score:5, Informative)
This is not strictly true for payroll. Of course it can depend on where you are based and how big your company is. We develop payroll software and just off the top of my head in the past 10 years or so we've dealt with:
New payroll taxes in various states that the software needs to be reprogrammed for.
New payroll tax reporting requirements (paper and electronic) associated with new payroll taxes.
New payroll tax calculation methods (e.g. Medicare surtax calculating tax over certain wage amounts).
Ongoing changes to 941 / 943 reporting to deal with Covid tax credits.
Mandatory implementation of sick pay programs in various states (CA/AZ/WA/OR/MI).
Mandatory implementation of retirement programs in Oregon and California.
Changes to how pay rates for breaks (mandated by court rulings or by law) must be calculated in Washington and California.
Changes to information required by law on check stub/vouchers.
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I stopped using their payroll tables and calculations when they decided to charge $500/year for it and instead do my own calculations in LibreCalc and fill out my own 941. I am the only employee of my company, so it's not that hard and takes about 3-4 hours more per year to do things than it did with QB, so it'd be a wash for me, but I hate the company so much and wish a passion that I refuse to give them the money. I'm still using the 2016 version of QB Pro. As long as my accountant can import my file i
Once again (Score:5, Insightful)
Once again, using on-line sites (or cloud) for critical data proves your data is not yours. At this point, if you do not manage your own systems, you are open to this "fraud" by your providers.
Yet another stab in the back to small businesses.
I don't see the problem here (Score:2)
I mean, Equifax has more than demonstrated that they're a responsible party, capable of securely holding information on...
In 2017, Equifax had a massive data breach that exposed the personal and financial details of 145.5 million Americans.
Oh, right. Hell no.
The customers (businesses) can opt out. (Score:1)
The employee on the other hand has zero option on this. How did we let a bunch of grifters become so powerful? They control your interest rate, insurance rate, if you can even get hired for a job, and now they will make sure that you always get lowballed.
That horse left the barn decades ago. (Score:2, Interesting)
Why does this even happen? (Score:2)
Why do companies send information to Equifax and others?
Why do they sell their customers information for cheap?
Why is this even permitted in any developed country, or even an undeveloped one?
Shouldn't the employees be able to opt out? (Score:5, Interesting)
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If you're not allowed to discuss your pay and bonuses with fellow employees then why are the Inuit and Equifax schmucks getting all that data?
Simple: sharing pay rates with fellow employees is bad for the business's bottom line; sharing info with Equifax is good for the business's bottom line.
What About The Employees? (Score:2)
QuickBooks has arbitrarily decided to sell employee payroll data to a credit agency and data aggregator.
They're "very kindly" notifying the employers that the employers can opt out. But, it is the EMPLOEE'S personal data that is being absconded and no one is asking or informing them!
It turns out that ADP is already doing something similar. This is the first I'm hearing of this, but it does finally explain to me a recent incident where some personal data was leaked and I could not understand how it had come