HireRight Ordered to pay $2.6 Million for Multiple FCRA Violations

HireRight Solutions, an employment background screening company has been ordered to pay $2.6 million to settle Federal Trade Commission (FTC) charges that claimed HireRight.com violated the Fair Credit Reporting Act (FCRA) by failing to use reasonable procedures to assure the maximum possible accuracy of information contained in their reports. This marks the second largest civil penalty imposed by the FTC under the FCRA. In 2006, ChoicePoint, Inc. was ordered to pay $10 million in civil penalties.

The FTC claims explained that reports procured by HireRight Solutions “failed to take reasonable steps to ensure that the information in the reports was current and reflected updates”. This would indicate HireRight aided employers in making hiring decisions based on inaccurate information by essentially failing to verify the accuracy and thoroughness of the data HireRight Solutions provided to its employer clients.

The FTC complaint goes on to state that HireRight Solutions failed to update their public record information to reflect up-to-date record keeping. In some cases, the records HireRight provided to its clients on applicants belonged to completely different persons than the applicants. The FTC claims that these failures led to applicants being denied employment or other employment-related benefits.