In observance of Presidents day, please expect delays with Criminal Records as the majority of courts will be closed on Friday and/or Monday. Crimcheck.com will forward the results of the background check as soon as possible. Thank you for your understanding.

Generate Authorization Email has been renamed to its trademarked name Applicant Link.

Crimcheck.com offices will be following this schedule for the upcoming holiday season:

CLOSED Thanksgiving, Thursday November 26th, 2009
CLOSED Friday November 27th, 2009

CLOSED Christmas Eve, December 24th, 2009
CLOSED Christmas Day, December 25th, 2009

HALF DAY 8:30 am to 12:30 pm New Years Eve, Thursday December 31st, 2009
CLOSED New Years Day, January 1st, 2010

Effective September 1st, 2009, the Florida state record fee will increase to $8.05 for a Florida 3–year MVR and to $10.05 for Florida 7–year and Complete MVRs.

Utah recently passed a new law, the Employment Selection Procedures Act, Utah Code 34A-1-202, which prohibits what personal information an employer with over 15 employees in the state of Utah may require an applicant to provide in the pre-employment context.

This new law went into effect on May 12, 2009. Specifically, the law states that employers may not request information related to an applicant’s social security number, date or birth or driver license number until either:

1) the applicant is offered a job; or

2) the time when the employer obtains a criminal background check, credit check, or driving record check to which the applicant has consented.

Employers subject to this law may also not use information about an applicant for any other purpose than to determine whether the employer will hire the applicant as an employee. The law additionally places requirements for employers to maintain a policy regarding the retention, disposition, access, and confidentiality of this information. Finally, employers may only keep such information about applicants about whom they do not hire for a period of two years after obtaining the information from the applicant.

Texas lawmakers worried about identity theft are trying to remove state employees’ birth dates from public records — a move journalists and open records advocates say is unnecessary and will hamper government oversight.

A proposal by Rep. Helen Giddings, D-DeSoto, that would make the information private is scheduled for a public hearing Tuesday. A Senate version of the bill had a hearing earlier this month.

Those and at least two other bills filed in the Legislature this session could supersede a pending Texas Supreme Court case between The Dallas Morning News and the state comptroller’s office.

In 2006 the comptroller’s office filed a lawsuit asking that birth dates be ruled as personal information exempt from open records requests. That was after then-Comptroller Carole Keeton Strayhorn refused to include birth dates with employee payroll records requested by the Morning News. Past records have included the dates.

Read More Here

Dear NAPBS Members,

As you may be aware, the State of New York has amended its laws relating to investigative consumer reports and those reports containing criminal reports. New York’s ex-convict’s have a high unemployment rate of approximately 60% after one year from release. To help those people find employment, New York is working to make it very clear to the users of criminal reports that they cannot discriminate against these people simply because they have a criminal record.

On February 1, 2009, two changes to the New York consumer reporting laws will become effective:

§380-c, General Business Law. If a user requests an investigative consumer report for employment purposes, The user must, in the notice to the consumer state that a report will be sought and indicate that it is providing a copy of Article 23-A of the New York Correction Law to the consumer which sets for the anti-discrimination provision relating to those with criminal records. It matters not whether the investigative consumer report will contain any criminal record information.

§380-g, General Business Law. This amendment added sub-section (d) which provides that if a consumer report contains a criminal record then the user shall provide a copy of Article 23-A of the Correction Law to the consumer.

While the law does not specifically state which hiring situations are controlled by these new laws, past research suggests that New York discrimination laws will apply to those working in the State of New York. Thus it will apply to a New York company employing an applicant to work in New York. It will not apply to a New York company employing a person in New Jersey unless they hire that person in New York. It will apply to a New Jersey employing someone in New York.

What does a consumer reporting agency need to do?

1. Provide a workable copy of Article 23-A of the New York Correction law which provides the rights of non-discrimination for those with criminal records to your customers. A suggested format is included. It is down to a front and back of one page.

2. Provide new language in your Consent and Release forms referencing that a copy of Article 23-A is being provided to the consumer. A suggested form is provided. In regard to the use of Consent and Release forms, the new law provisions do not follow a logical connection to the report being provided since they require notification if any investigative consumer report, regardless of whether the report includes criminal records, is ordered but the notice about criminal convictions must be in a Consent and Release form. Of course, many regular consumer reports contain criminal records, but the Consent and Release for these types of reports need not contain this notice regarding discrimination and the use of criminal reports. Rather the user of a regular consumer report will provide a copy of the law later in the process. This creates a very confusing situation. When the law creates choices, it is likely that some ministerial person will select the wrong choice and thus create the legal trap. It is recommended that a single Consent and Release form be used for New York employment and every consumer who is the subject of the report be provided a copy of the anti-discrimination law found in Article 23-A. If you wish to alter your own forms rather than using the attached form, then be sure that the form covers regular and investigative consumer reports and that an acknowledgement for the receipt of Article 23-A is included on the form.

New York has also provided a safe harbor for employers. Since the state is pushing for employment of those with a criminal record, it has now provided a defense to a negligent hiring/retention claim if the employer considers the elements contained in §753 of Article 23-A. Logically the inverse should be true that such analysis would provide a defense to a discrimination claim by an applicant who is not hired. Your clients may not have heard of this law or they may not have implemented it in their hiring process. In order not to lose clients due to new legal requirements, it is suggested that CRAs provide the enclosed suggested form with the attached cover letter to their customers which can be used either to qualify or disqualify an applicant/employee based upon his/her criminal record. Filling out part of the form, not the decision making process, might be of service the CRA can offer to the client and thus the customer only has to describe the relationship of the offense to the job and the reasons for not hiring or hiring the individual. Further, a chart of New York offenses and their classifications so that relative seriousness can be noted on the form, is also attached. We cannot guarantee the completeness of this chart, but it is the official chart provided by the State of New York for categorizing state crimes.

Documents can be found at

http://www.napbs.com/content.php?id=270

Scroll to the bottom of the page for the New York Documents.

The Crimcheck.com office will be closed on Friday, November 28th. Email support and questions will still be answered during normal business hours on Friday.

New York State recently enacted legislation regarding a company’s requirement to consider the relevance of an applicant’s criminal history to the job that is being applied for. The legislation goes into effect on February 1, 2009.

The legislation requires that companies must provide individuals subject to a criminal background check with a copy of Article 23-A of the Corrections Law: “Licensure and Employment of Persons Previously Convicted of One or More Criminal Offenses,” before it requests a criminal history report from a CRA (Consumer Reporting Agency) and when it receives a background screening report reflecting a criminal history.

The recently passed legislation also requires employers to post a copy of Article 23-A of the Corrections Law in the workplace.

Crimcheck to be closed Labor Day ( September 1st )