In my recent newsletter, I wrote about the FTC and their recent crackdown on data brokers violating privacy laws. In a nutshell, there are background screening companies out there (the majority of them online) who are breaking privacy laws by promising to give you information you may not be legally privy to. For example, many of these companies do not require a disclosure form or provide the consumer with his or her rights. By using these companies, you are setting yourself up for legal troubles because ultimately you are responsible for the information you obtain.
How do you buyer beware? Make sure your background screening company is, at a minimum, FCRA compliant and is not a ‘data dump’. By data dump, I mean a company who just pulls data from databases and sends you the results without ever confirming the accuracy. An even better company is one who is accredited through NAPBS.
Contract issues with background checks
About once a month, I get a call from a company saying they are required to run certain background checks for a contract they recently
