Loss Prevention Magazine's latest issue has an article titled "Planning, Implementing, and Justifying an Employment Screening Process" written by Al Vanegas and Claude Verville of Lowe's.

While the article is a decent primer on a wholistic employment screening process, their discussion of the background check content leaves something to be desired.

Talk about going against the conventional wisdom, huh?

I just saw this interesting post on Jason Morris' Background Checks Blog and checked it out further. Researchers from Georgetown, Berkeley, and UCLA found that "employers who systematically check criminal background during the hiring process are 8.4 percentage points more likely to have hired a black applicant into their most recently filled position."

I presented last week at the 2006 Annual Pre-Employment Screeners Conference in Clearwater, Florida. The attendance was outstanding. Over 400 registrants showed up to hear some of the best and brightest in our industry educate and challenge us. As with most conferences, some of the best value came in the hallways, bars, and restaurants as we networked with our peers.

Over the last several years, many courts and other agencies have rushed to make their records available to the public via the internet. Recently, some of these entities have begun to reconsider their use of the web for sharing their information in reaction to public concerns over both real and imagined privacy concerns.

Often misidentified as the holy grail of background checks, the FBI's criminal records database has long inspired both derision and fear from private-sector background screeners. While some industries have long had access to the FBI's criminal records repository, most employers have not had access to this resource and many screening firms have prayed that it never be made available.

Thankfully, their prayers have fallen on deaf ears.

The advent of web-based court records present a number of issues for consumers, screening firms, courts, employers, and the public. Great caution should be exercised when considering the use of such technology.

I used this space a few months ago to sing the praises of the backbone of our industry – the courthouse researchers. I argued then that they should be treated as valuable resources rather than commodities. I received a number of gracious notes of thanks for that article from both researchers and screening firms. At the same time, I also heard a few stories of researchers who performed their responsibilities less than admirably.

In recent years the number of firms offering employment-related background checks has exploded. Many of these new firms, though well intentioned, are surprised to learn that they have been operating outside of the requirements of the federal law governing the use of background checks in the employment context – the Fair Credit Reporting Act.

Following the major data breaches suffered by several large database companies and a number of other businesses, our industry has paid a great deal more attention to the importance of "knowing your customers," in other words, making sure that your clients are legitimate businesses with legitimate needs to know the information you are providing them.