Security News > 2021 > July > Intuit to Share Payroll Data from 1.4M Small Businesses With Equifax
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.
"Using payroll data from government agencies and thousands of employers - including a vast majority of Fortune 500 companies - Equifax has cultivated a database of 300 million current and historic employment records, according to regulatory filings."
"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.
In selling payroll data to Equifax, Intuit will be joining some of the world's largest payroll providers.
ADP - the largest payroll software provider in the United States - has long shared payroll data with Equifax.
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.