FTC issues guidance for employment background screening companies on FCRA compliance

The Federal Trade Commission (FTC) has issued new guidance for consumer reporting agencies that provide employment background screening services. The guidance generally reiterates existing Fair Credit Reporting Act (FCRA) statutory requirements, including following reasonable procedures to assure accuracy, getting required certifications from clients, investigating consumer disputes and correcting inaccurate information.

With respect to the FCRA’s requirement that a consumer reporting agency follow “reasonable procedures to assure maximum possible accuracy,” the FTC pointed to background screening reports with multiple entries for the same offense or reports that list expunged or otherwise sealed criminal records as indicators that this requirement is not being met.

Truescreen has procedures in place to ensure that we do not report multiple entries for the same offense in a screening report. When performing criminal searches, the same offense may be located through multiple sources, such as county records, state records and National Criminal Database (NCD). In these situations, where the same offense comes back from multiple sources, we compare all of the data and report only the results from the search that provides the most detailed information.

With respect to expunged and sealed records, if we locate a record and it specifically indicates that the record is sealed or expunged, we will not report it – helping ensure compliance.

Source: Federal Trade Commission, 5/10/2016

Posted: June 16, 2016