The Truth about Employment Background Checks and Privacy Laws

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

Early in the 1990s there was rise incases involving assault and damages done to customers by employees, and courtsthen ruled that the employers were legally responsible for negligent hiring.This started the entire employmentbackground check and background screening business we have today. Manyprivacy laws have been introduced and amended to take the rise in this industryinto account.

It still stands today that everyindividual has the right to privacy, but it is also the right of every employerto 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 outnormal background checks, previous employment checks, as well as to seek otherinformation on any applicant. Employers have the right to hire the best personfor the job, and if the job involves children or money, they wouldn’t want tohire 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 fordenying any applicant employment. Also part of the FCRA is an act known as theAmerican with Disabilities Act that states that employers are not allowed touse an applicant’s disability as reason for rejection if the disability has nobearing on his/her ability to perform the job offered.

There is a loophole to the FCRA thatcurrently most employers are using; they now use their own resources to conductthe background checks because theact only applies if the employer subcontracts the background checking to aprofessional agency. Another is that the law only applies to the reporting forthe results not to the pre-employment background check itself. They cantherefore view all necessary information then provide the applicant with areason 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 viewthe report themselves, often times some may not bother to. There are somestates that allow applicants to legally view all information procured by theemployer, but even in these states the law cannot force an employer to hiresomeone they don’t want to hire. The true reason behind an employee's rejectionis, more often than not, kept and never revealed. Any company can just easilysay that they found someone better suited for the job and have no legalrepercussions whatsoever.