LOS ANGELES (June 3, 1999 12:04 p.m. EDT http://www.nandotimes.com) - California will begin selling confidential wage data of 14 million of its residents to private information companies, car dealers and creditors wanting to check an individual's annual income.
... No data would be shared without the written permission of the individual, state officials said. However, private companies that are deemed qualified to access the data would operate on an honor system and would not be required to show proof of each individual's written permission before accessing the information.
_________________________
of course this last bit is a huge joke. i used to work in the library of a "major city daily" newspaper. reporters routinely requested, and librarians routinely provided, information from databases that were supposedly restricted in this or similar ways. you can bet that they (and just about anyone else) will have access to this info as well.
full story:
http://www.nandotimes.com/noframes/story/0,2107,55865-89293-634754-0,00.html