Is it ok for HR to include my national insurance number on a rental reference?

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manpreet Tuteehub forum best answer Best Answer 2 years ago

I have been asked for a work reference for a new house rental contract with a private landlord. This is just a reference to prove that I am in full time employment.

The Human Resources team have kindly provided this, but I have noticed that they have included my National Insurance number on the reference. Is this right?

The letter has both my name and National Insurance number. I trust my landlord, but I am concerned that the practice of including the NI could at some point lead to identity fraud for someone who ends up with a bad landlord.

Should I be worried? Or am I misunderstanding what can be achieved by having someone's name, address and National Insurance number?

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manpreet 2 years ago

 

From a me perspective:

While not being that great of an identifier alone a national insurance number can be somewhat loosely used as a means of identifying an individual. This alongside other personally identifying information could lead to higher risks of identity fraud, the more of it there is the more identifiable you become. If we were being pedantic then yes there is a reasonable chance of identity fraud but also at the same time this all sounds within the realm of things I'd expect to be providing a landlord whose property I'm renting out. I suppose they would be leaving this down to you to handle if that's how HR have given you the information.

In regards to Human Resources:

The best principle I could think of would be 'as much as is fundamentally necessary', simply put if there is no need for it to be on said document it should be removed. Which in the case of a work reference, If your landlord isn't requiring it then there's no reason to be presenting it.


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