E-Verify is an online tool that allows workers to check their own employment eligibility status before formally seeking employment. Beginning March 21, 2011 the E-Verify Self Check service will be available to users who maintain an address and are physically located in Arizona, Idaho, Colorado, Mississippi, Virginia or the District of Columbia. In the coming months, USCIS will continue to expand the E-Verify Self Check service to additional eligible users on a rolling basis.
E-Verify Self Check, a partnership between the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) and the Social Security Administration (SSA), is the first online E-Verify program offered directly to workers and job seekers. This voluntary, free, fast and secure service gives users the opportunity to submit corrections of any inaccuracies in their DHS and SSA records before applying for jobs—allowing workers to better protect themselves from potential workplace discrimination that could result from an employer’s abuse of the E-Verify system. The E-Verify program compares information from the Employment Eligibility Verification Form (I-9) against federal government databases to verify workers’ employment eligibility. The E-Verify Self Check system allows each user to identify data inaccuracies—which often range from typographical errors to unreported name changes—that would result in a mismatch before he or she seeks employment.
The E-Verify Self Check process consists of four steps:
- Users enter identifying information online (such as name, date of birth and address)
- Users confirm their identity by answering demographic and/or financial questions generated by a third-party identity assurance service
- Users enter work eligibility information such as a Social Security number and, depending on citizenship status, an Alien Registration number
- E-Verify Self Check checks users’ information against relevant SSA and DHS databases and returns information on users’ employment eligibility status
Every aspect of the E-Verify Self Check process is designed to secure users’ personally identifiable information and to prevent misuse of the service. Additionally, information that users provide to E-Verify Self Check and the results of an E-Verify Self Check are not shared with users’ employers or prospective employers. The results of a Self Check query do not replace the results of an employer E-Verify query.
For more information on E-Verify Self Check, visit www.uscis.gov/everify