Background Checks

When an employer or landlord uses a consumer reporting agency to run a background check, the Fair Credit Reporting Act requires them to get your written permission first.

Before they take adverse action based on the report — not hiring you, not renting to you — they must give you a pre-adverse action notice that includes a copy of the report and a summary of your FCRA rights, and a reasonable window to dispute it. Only after that can they send the final adverse action notice.

This matters because background reports contain errors more often than people expect: wrong person, charges shown as convictions, dispositions never updated, or sealed cases still appearing.

You can dispute an inaccurate item directly with the reporting company, which generally must investigate and respond. Keep every notice you receive — the pre-adverse action letter tells you which company produced the report.

Getting an updated disposition from the court and sending it to the reporting company is usually the fastest fix.

Under federal law, non-conviction arrest information generally may not be reported after seven years, though that limit does not apply to positions above a salary threshold. Convictions may be reported without a federal time limit.

Several states go further and restrict conviction reporting after a set number of years. Because the rule depends on your state and the salary of the role, treat the seven-year figure as a starting point rather than a guarantee.

Licensing agencies, schools, healthcare employers, and government roles often run fingerprint-based checks through a state agency and the FBI rather than a consumer reporting company. These follow the agency's own rules, not the FCRA process above.

You generally have the right to review and challenge the accuracy of your own FBI identity history record. If a fingerprint check is coming, requesting your own record first is a reasonable way to know what it says before someone else reads it.