A Shenzhen company started offering employers the chance to carry out background checks on potential employees recently, making the city the first in the nation to have such services.

The service provider, First Credit Service Co. Ltd., opened the service to employers after providing personal credit reports to financial institutions for four years.

Zhao Jinhua, the product supervisor of the company, said the background checks were a very convenient way for employers to check the job applicants' backgrounds to see if they had lied about working experiences or qualifications.

The personal information system now covers more than 6 million Shenzheners' qualification and employment status, but it can provide personal details on more than 400 million people from other cities.

The rating system creators are looking forward to including information of the other 900 million people from the rural areas, and also that of foreigners who have bank credit records and the like in the city in the next two or three years, according to Zhao.

The reports could be both in Chinese and English and will include information including personal details, higher educational background, social insurance status and employment records.

They also cover bank credit records such as loans and their repayment, credit cards used, etc., and records when and who once asks for a personal credit report from the company.

"However, not every company will be allowed to see the target person's bank credit records, except when they are recruiting important personnel like financial personnel and senior managers. And only the target person himself could know who got access to his credit reports. We are worried about privacy a great deal," said Zhao.

Only employers that got approval from the target person beforehand could do a background check, and the information must be kept confidential and used exclusively for job recruitment, Zhao said.

The Shenzhen Municipal Government issued a set of regulations on the rating and management of a personal credit system in December 2001, making the city the first in the country to do so.

(Shenzhen Daily August 2, 2005)