Confidential worker data is hardly that.

Many of the nation's largest industrial corporations still don't have adequate policies to protect sensitive confidential employee data from possible abuse, a study of privacy practices in the workplace revealed. "Not only do two-thirds of the companies disclose employee information to creditors requesting it, but also many employees are isolated from knowing what's in their own records," notes David Linowes, professor of political economy and public policy, University of Illinois, and author of Privacy in America.

Thirty-eight percent of the Fortune 500 firms that participated in the study do not inform employees of the types of records maintained about them; 44% do not tell personnel how records are used; nearly 60% do not inform workers about disclosure practices to government; and 18% do not tell personnel which records they have access to. "This limited approach is not sufficient," Linowes maintains. "A uniform Federal law is needed to protect individuals and to set guidelines of fair-information practices for businesses."

Eighty-four corporations, representing more than 3,200,000 employees, responded to a...