The Federal Trade Commission (FTC) has put mobile app companies that provide background checks on notice. Two Minnesota companies recently settled charges that their mobile apps violated federal consumer protection laws. The FTC claims that Filiquarian and Choice Level violated the FCRA by not ensuring maximum possible accuracy with records it reported, and by not allowing consumers to dispute information related to their criminal background history.
The FTC alleges that Filiquarian and Choice Level “did not comply with the law” and that the companies “regularly” provided reports without first finding out whether the end user of the reports had a permissible purpose to request the reports. Furthermore the FTC claims the companies didn’t properly vet the information being sent to the end user(s) for accuracy and completeness.
This is the second time the FTC has warned data brokers that their mobile apps must comply with the FCRA. Last year Spokeo was ordered to pay $800,000 for violating federal law.
Read the entire FTC compliant here.
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