May Employers Require An Applicants DOB & SSN Information?
Employers have a lawful right to require the applicant to provide specific identifier information, provided the employer can demonstrate a “legitimate business purpose”. Social Security Numbers are required by both federal & state agencies and thereby meet the “legitimate business purpose” criteria. Date of birth information has largely been excluded from employment applications with the intent of avoiding age discrimination claims. A legitimate business purpose exists for requiring DOB information to satisfy the employers need to exercise “reasonable effort” when screening potential employees. Date of birth information is necessary to ensure that the criminal record of a similar named individual is not attributed to a innocent party, as well as supplemental confirmation that an offenders record is attributed correctly based on name, date of birth and social security identifiers. In addition to reducing the undesirable impact of erroneous screening results, employers and applicants ben
