Tag: background checks

The Purgatory of Digital Punishment

It doesn’t matter whether they’re accurate—criminal records are all over the internet, where anyone can find them. And everyone does. By SARAH ESTHER LAGESON On a frozen December day in Minneapolis, William walked into a free legal aid seminar, to try to fix his criminal record. Lumbering toward a lawyer, his arms full of paperwork, William tried to explain his situation quickly. “I want to show you my record here that I got from my probation officer. Here.” Frustrated, William waved papers in the air. After an employer and a landlord both denied his applications following private background checks, William started to suspect something was wrong with his criminal record. When he finally got a copy, the data made no sense. One arrest was dated to 1901. Another arrest was linked to an active warrant. “Now, here’s a thing about it. I got one [conviction] in ’82; that was the last time I was in jail.” William paused to scan the document. “And that was that charge here. All of this,” he said, pointing to the paper, “is not me.” It seemed as if someone with a similar name—and a far more extensive criminal history—had been matched to William’s identity in […]

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Uber sued over illegal background checks and employee policies

In recent months, heightened attention has been paid to the background check practices of the ride-sharing company Uber. Concerns about the safety of Uber services prompted the District Attorney’s Offices of San Francisco and Los Angeles Counties to file suit last December against Uber for misleading customers about the scope of its driver background checks. As discussed in a previous post, Uber has largely resisted efforts by legislators to mandate more intensive background checks, but the pressure continues to mount. This pressure for enhanced background checks has raised another area of concern: the manner in which Uber conducts background checks, and the impact of its employment practices on drivers and prospective drivers.  At the end of 2014, our organizations, the Lawyers’ Committee for Civil Rights of the San Francisco Bay Area and the law firm Goldstein, Borgen, Dardarian & Ho, filed a putative, nationwide class action lawsuit against Uber, based in part on its violation of federal and state background check laws.

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“Decades-long Arrest Wave Vexes Employers”

The Wall Street Journal has been running a well-researched series by Gary Fields and John Emschwiller on the consequences of mass conviction.  The installment last week (“Decades-long arrest wave vexes employers”) describes the dilemma facing employers caught between legal limitations on who they can hire and legal obligations to be fair. Hiring the most capable workers seems a luxury most employers can’t afford.

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