The Truth about Employment Background Checks and Privacy Laws

Privacy laws were put into place basically to protect individuals and privacy of their personal information, but there are times where in there is a necessity to locate and review their personal data. Such is the case when it comes to employment for a certain job, especially if the job description includes being around children or handling large amounts of money unsupervised and other careers including with the government.

Early in the 1990s there was rise in cases involving assault and damages done to customers by employees, and courts then ruled that the employers were legally responsible for negligent hiring. This started the entire employment background check and background screening business we have today. Many privacy laws have been introduced and amended to take the rise in this industry into account.

It still stands today that every individual has the right to privacy, but it is also the right of every employer to get as much information as they can on the person they want to hire. Most, if not all, jobs now require an employee to have good moral character, diligence and at least a clean record. It is legal for employers to carry out normal background checks, previous employment checks, as well as to seek other information on any applicant. Employers have the right to hire the best person for the job, and if the job involves children or money, they wouldn’t want to hire a person with previous sex offenses or robbery charges.

Part of the Fair Credit Reporting Act (FCRA), is that employers cannot use convictions over 7 years ago as basis for denying any applicant employment. Also part of the FCRA is an act known as the American with Disabilities Act that states that employers are not allowed to use an applicant’s disability as reason for rejection if the disability has no bearing on his/her ability to perform the job offered.

There is a loophole to the FCRA that currently most employers are using; they now use their own resources to conduct the background checks because the act only applies if the employer subcontracts the background checking to a professional agency. Another is that the law only applies to the reporting for the results not to the pre-employment background check itself. They can therefore view all necessary information then provide the applicant with a reason for rejection that is not part of the reasons stated in the FCRA act.

Most of the time when this happens, applicant usually want to view the report themselves, often times some may not bother to. There are some states that allow applicants to legally view all information procured by the employer, but even in these states the law cannot force an employer to hire someone they don’t want to hire. The true reason behind an employee's rejection is, more often than not, kept and never revealed. Any company can just easily say that they found someone better suited for the job and have no legal repercussions whatsoever.

For more information and resource on background checks, self defense, ID theft and other life saving tips visit www.dontbeavictim.org