The Workings Of An Employment Criminal Background Check

An employment criminal background check is a common step taken by employers taken by applicants when screening employees. This is done to assess whether or not the applicants pose an unacceptable risk to the company and to employers and to reduce liability in case of an incident involving employee crime and violence.

There is now some controversy over the ways that employers conduct employment criminal background checks of employees. Background checks are seen by some as a gratuitous violation of privacy as the information gathered might prove to be embarrassing. Others do not mind the scrutiny, especially when there is no criminal record to speak of.

However, the fact remains in the lawsuit-happy culture of today, many parties see relaxed employment screening processes as a sign of negligence in case theft, violence, or other untoward incidents between employees happen in the workplace. And consequently, as a compromise, and in many jurisdictions, as a requirement, employers have to obtain the permission of an applicant before an employment criminal background check is run on the same.

Permission waivers usually come in two parts. The first part contains basic information about the applicant, usually with fields for entering name, gender, date of birth, permanent address, and other pertinent information as required to run a background check. This information is usually secured as part of the interview process and is usually filled up by the applicant. The second part is the actual waiver where the applicant is made to understand that they are giving up their right to privacy with regards to the conducting of an employment criminal background check. There is then a space for the name and signature of the applicant so he may express his consent to the employment criminal background check.

If the employment criminal background check is authorized by the applicant, a background check is then conducted by either an in-house human resources person working for the firm or a contractor. Incidentally, it has been found that the larger the firm is, the more likely they are to hire contractors to do the work of conducting an employment criminal background check.

It should be noted that routine employment criminal background checks are being conducted on applicants. This is because computer networks and related technologies have made such checks easier, where as before such checks were only especially considered for very sensitive positions due to the time and expense previously associated with conducting them.

Another interesting thing to understand is that today, many employers conduct background checks without asking for permission. It is debatable whether they are within rights to so. What is not debatable is that some unethical employers use the information gathered from an employment criminal background check, whether or not it was taken with permission, to unfairly discriminate or to use for purposes unfairly detrimental to an applicant or an employee.

In light of the conflict between the privacy rights of an individual and the rights of a company to protect itself and its responsibility to protect its current employees is a conflict with no clear end in sight. Certainly there is no clear end for any country that protects individual privacy while trying to ensure security for everyone as a whole.

Background Check