FTC Issues "Advice" On Background Check Disclosure And Authorization Forms

On April 28, 2017, the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) issued a blog article entitled "Background checks on prospective employees: Keep required disclosures simple."¹ The FTC is one of the two federal agencies with oversight of the Fair Credit Reporting Act (FCRA); the other one is the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB). The FCRA imposes specific obligations on employers that order background checks from vendors (known as consumer reporting agencies), including the obligation to obtain informed authorization from job applicants for background checks. To obtain such authorization, the FCRA directs employers to make a "clear and conspicuous" written disclosure to the job applicant about the background check, in a document that consists "solely" of the disclosure.