If they are indeed requiring ANY portion of your SSN my suggestion is to avoid them at all costs... I've provided my DL in the past but only on a couple of occassions and they were both rip offs!!! there should be no need for verification to that degree and I would question the motives of anyone who used such methods as   means of verification! Just because someone shows you their license doesn't mean they don;'t have alterior motives...

My .02

Fog

I know that screening is a perennial issue here, and can lead to flame-wars of a kind. There is the obvious tension between the need to ensure the personal security of the escort, and the need to protect the privacy of the customer - a privacy interest that does not just extent to reputational risk but also protection from possible legal proceedings in the future.  How to resolve that tension is a problem that has yet to be satisfactorily resolved.

But one agency which I would love to provide business, Desirable Companions, now has gone so far as to require the last 4 digits of your Social Security Number as part of the screening process. Moreover, the screening page assures customers that the information will not be shared without your written permission - thereby also confirming that the information is retained, and will be available for seizure should the agency be busted.

Surely there are better ways to protect the personal security of escorts, whose physical vulnerability in these situations is not to be underestimated, than requiring that kind of disclosure. Thoughts?

Email them and see if they'll use other information. I have never given them that info.

Really?  They know your real name, business, contact information and finally they'll need your date of birth and SSN just to get laid.

Do you even know their real name, an address to contact, any of their employees real names, how they store information, who has control of it?  Can't wait for the book to come out.

I know two people who took a photos of their DL and texted them over to someone.

They haven't asked me for DL either.  Sounds really shady.

Assurances from any organization whatever that your personal data is safe are simply unfounded.  We can estimate degrees of safety depending on the information management authority, but there is no certainty.  We have seen the most secure systems, onshore and off, encrypted and not, hacked into or seized by lawful intercept and rogue actors on countless occasions.  This includes some of our most protected information systems.  Any assertion that your private data is irrefutably safe is simply not defensible.  I think that this assertion from an escort agency is especially unbelievable.

Information about clients is most certainly retained by any individual or organization in this business; it is the business cornerstone of client relations (no pun intended).  Evidence of this can be seen in e.g., accidental mass emailings of entire client email database to the enterprise's client list, etc., demonstrating both the retention of that client data and its susceptibility to undesirable disclosure.  I've seen this very example both from agencies and individuals.

I have no personal knowledge of DC's screening practices, but I personally would not be comfortable providing that kind of information.  Different folks have different comfort levels with what they're willing to share.  Some will put loads of identity info out there; others are very secretive with their identity information.

In my opinion, one of the best ways to maximize one's screenability and minimize identity information propagation is to gradually build references through services like TER, P411, DATE-CHECK, etc. as well as agencies and independents to develop a client persona that most providers are very comfortable with.  If you've gotten to that point and are faced with screening criteria that exceed your willingness to disclose, you can either try to plead your personal case (not hopeful about this one) or just move on and resolve that these criteria are too invasive for your comfort level.

A provider that I know was busted in a Maryland Suburb. After local busted her the FBI human task took her social security number and cell phone.

This is scary.  It mentions Desirable!

http://rockvillecentral.com/2010/11/police-step-up-efforts-against-human-trafficking-prostitution.html/

I agree totally. The problem is that agencies like DC no longer seem to accept just TER, P411 etc. as a reliable screen. I am personally uncomfortable providing my full real name, far less info like SSN or DL numbers - that is the very purpose for having screening agents like P411, so that you can avoid putting your real name in the hands of agencies. I have a well-established persona with TER white listings, P411 endorsements, and lots of references, but if agencies start requiring the kind of info that DC does, my hobby space will be shrinking...

Look at the breaches at Sony. No one, let alone any escort agency can guarantee security so it falls to the individual to use prudence when submitting personal information. Providing driver's license or SSN information is imprudent. As for MoCoPD's efforts against escorting it sounds scary but not unexpected. I had a post date conversation with an escort about what was going on there (for that reason she didn't want me to post a review).

...That joke made my week!

...if enough people feel as you do, they will stop asking for the info.