Update: The Economic Growth, Regulatory Relief, and Consumer Protection Act
The Consumer Financial Protection Bureau recognizes some might find providing the addendum to be less burdensome than changing your existing forms, we also wanted to provide our clients with an alternative.
To recap, this addendum should be provided to the consumer whenever the Summary has been provided, which is outlined in subsection 609 of the FCRA. Subsection 609 of the FCRA states the Summary of Your Rights Under the Fair Credit Reporting Act should be provided to the consumer at each disclosure, or each time the consumer is given a copy of the consumer report.
So any time you provide your applicant/employee with the Summary of Your Rights (current version), please include the addendum: Consumers Have the Right to Obtain a Security Freeze.
Alternatively, we have also want to provide you with a copy of the Summary of Your Rights Under the FCRA with the Consumers Have the Right to Obtain a Security Freeze language included. This is a copy of the preview of the form the CFPB has provided. This can be used in lieu of the two forms.
You can download the Summary of Your Rights Under the Fair Credit Reporting Acting including Consumer Security Freeze here.
Posted 09/12/2018
If ever you see something in the news, or an email from us, indicating there has been some change to the FCRA, the Fair Credit Report Act, it would seem easy to dismiss. If your company is not interested in credit history maintained by the credit bureaus as a part of your background check process, then why would changes to the FCRA effect you? But the FCRA governs so much more than just a credit report. The FCRA is the legislation that governs information collected by a CRA, or Credit Reporting Agency (us) and provided to its end user (you) that can include criminal history, employment history, professional references and much, much more.
Our industry is hardly the only one in flux, but laws governing background checks are coming up a lot in the news lately. Ban the box and fair chance laws, changing reporting restrictions from jurisdiction to jurisdiction, and the growing restrictions on salary verification and credit history are just some of the challenges facing Consumer Reporting Agencies and their End Users. While some new laws and regulations may be intended for the credit bureaus, in practice they have a farther-reaching effect.
While the changes are minimal, a new act intended to provide consumers with a free security freeze on their credit reports will cause changes to your background check procedure.
The Economic Growth, Regulatory Relief, and Consumer Protection Act, which went into effect this year, has added a new subsection to 605A of the Fair Credit Reporting Act. The changes in FCRA include providing notice to a consumer of their right to obtain said security freeze. This notice must be provided at any time of the Summary of Your Rights Under the Fair Credit Reporting Act is required. The Summary of Your Rights under the Fair Credit Reporting Act is expected to change in the near future and should include the additional language. However, in an effort to keep our clients up-to-date on all FCRA compliance issues, we are providing an addendum to the Summary of Your Rights Under the Fair Credit Reporting Act. This addendum should be given to the consumer whenever the Summary has been provided, which is outlined in subsection 609 of the FCRA. Subsection 609 of the FCRA states the Summary of Your Rights Under the Fair Credit Reporting Act should be provided to the consumer at each disclosure, or each time the consumer is given a copy of the consumer report.
You can download the Consumers Have the Right to Obtain a Security Freeze addendum here.
