Redaction of Birth Dates Expected to Cause Issues - American Society of Employers - Susan Chance

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Redaction of Birth Dates Expected to Cause Issues

MI Supreme Court building

**UPDATE** Since this article published the Michigan Supreme Court issued orders
that delay implementation of their rule which would make dates of birth unavailable when performing background screens. The implementation date has been changed from July 1, 2021 until January 1, 2022.  

A Michigan Supreme Court decision will make it difficult for employers to run background checks on applicants effective July 1, 2021. The court has ordered that birthdates and other personal information are to be redacted for court records.

This effort to try to protect a person’s information will actually make it more difficult for people looking for jobs and for tenants looking for a place to live. This will be especially difficult for those with common names. Background screeners, to be in compliance with Federal law, use a minimum of two identifiers when matching records to a subject; typically, those identifiers are name and date of birth. The lack of information available in court records will make it impossible to make a definite match between records and the individual for whom the background check is being run.

 

The Consumer Financial Protection Bureau

 

The two solutions offered by the Michigan State Court Administration Office are not viable solutions:

1.       Background screeners can bring an applicant’s consent form with them to the courthouse to authorize the release of date of birth information.

2.       Background screeners can use the Michigan State Police online system, ICHAT.

The Professional Background Screening Association (PBSA), which ASE is a member of, has contacted some courts directly. Those courts state that the first option above will not be available as they do not have the resources to handle the workload that would be created by the suggested process.

Using “ICHAT only includes criminal offenses that have been fingerprinted and therefore is missing a great deal of information – particularly lower and mid-level charges and pending cases.”

The state of California has also required that a person’s date of birth be redacted from their records which has impacted many of their courts. Some courts will not process background check requests until it is decided how they will move forward.

The unintended consequence of the requirements to redact the birthdates and other information is that employers and landlords will not have the information they need to make informed decisions abouts applicant. This will particularly be an issue when it comes to applicants with common names. There can be hundreds of records out there for people who share common names, and with the identifiers being redacted, there will be no way to verify if the records do or do not belong to that applicant.

The PBSA is continuing to work on this issue, and they encourage employers to reach out to State Court Administrative Office, Supreme Court, Governor’s office, and Legislative Officials to express concerns and the business problems this decision will cause.  A template letter can be downloaded here.

We are working with our vendor for State of Michigan criminal/public records checks and will post updates regarding those checks on our background site as information is received.

 

Sources:  PBSA; WNEM; The Alpena News

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