DATE: Monday, September 22, 1997            TAG: 9709220075

SECTION: FRONT                   PAGE: A3   EDITION: FINAL 

SOURCE: NEW YORK TIMES 

DATELINE: WASHINGTON                        LENGTH:   70 lines

DATABASE ON DEADBEAT PARENTS IS RAISING HOPES AND CONCERNS

Enforcement of child support obligations enters a new era on Oct. 1, when the federal government will start operating a computerized directory showing every person newly hired by every employer in the country so federal and state investigators can track down parents who owe money to their children.

States will be able to use the directory to locate parents and pester them for payments, typically by securing court orders to employers to deduct child support from wages and salaries.

Keeping track of parents who move from state to state is one of the most difficult tasks in collecting child support, officials say. More than 30 percent of the 19 million child support cases involve parents who do not live in the same state as their children.

President Clinton will soon announce the National Directory of New Hires, which is required by the 1996 welfare law. But the directory is not just for welfare recipients. It will record basic information, including names, addresses, Social Security numbers and wages, for everyone hired after Oct. 1 for a full- or part-time job by an employer of any size.

It will be one of the largest, most up-to-date files of personal information kept by the government. Michael Kharfen, a spokesman for the Department of Health and Human Services, said the government expected to receive data on 60 million newly hired employees a year. Wages must be reported every three months; the government expects to receive 160 million wage reports each quarter.

The size and scope of the database have raised concerns about the potential for intrusions on privacy.

Federal and state officials predict that the new federal directory, combined with similar directories in all states, will produce billions of dollars in new child support payments. States like New York, Virginia, Texas and Missouri, which have required the reporting of newly hired workers in the last few years, say the procedure has been extremely helpful in locating absent parents.

Virginia has required the reporting of all newly hired employees since 1993. Patricia Addison, manager of operations for the state's child support program, said, ``We've found it an invaluable tool.''

The state of Virginia is routinely informed whenever a person takes a new job.

Despite the enthusiasm of state officials, Robert Gellman, an expert on privacy and information policy, expressed concern that the new data would be misused.

``The government is creating a gigantic new database with very broad uses and very little attention paid to the protection of personal privacy,'' he said. ``Private detectives will find a friend in the police department or a child welfare office to give them access to information in the directory of new hires. That already happens with criminal, medical and credit records.''

Here is how the new program will work:

Employers can file information by mail or magnetic tape. States may also take the information over the telephone, by fax or through the Internet.

An employer who fails to report new hires may be fined $25 for each newly hired employee. An employer who conspires with an employee to flout the reporting requirements may be fined $500.

A multi-state employer may file a report with one state listing all of its hiring across the country. Or it may file a separate report for each new employee in the state where the person works.

The federal government will require only six items of information: the name, address and Social Security number of each newly hired employee, the employer's name and address and the identification number assigned to the employer by the government.

But many states are requiring employers to file additional information, like telephone numbers, dates of birth, driver's license numbers and details of health insurance coverage provided to new employees. MEMO: child support

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