As more and more courts put their case files online and criminal records become more easily accessible, there has been a proliferation of online background check services that promise comprehensive reports with a few clicks. However, an analysis of the automated background checks used by landlords to screen tenants found that the automated background reports were frequently incorrect. The Markup, a nonprofit news organization focused on technology, in conjunction with The New York Times, conducted an analysis of hundreds of federal lawsuits filed against screening companies and found that automated reports are often delivered to landlords without ever being reviewed by a human.
According to a report by the National Consumer Law Center, a nonprofit focused on credit and background reporting, found that many of the tenant companies fail to employ techniques to root out false positives, such as comparing associated addresses or ensuring full name and date of birth matches. In one complaint against a tenant screening service, the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) alleged the company used broad criteria to match applicants to criminal records with only limited filtering of the results (i.e. only requiring an exact last name match paired with a non-exact match of a first name, middle name, or date of birth) and failed to implement policies to assess the accuracy of the results. The Markup’s analysis found that tenant screening companies frequently err on the side of including any possible negative information on tenants, even if the records are not an exact match. In fact, tenant screening reports are often produced using wild-card searches, which is a search strategy employing an asterisk (*) to include results of all name variations that start with the same few letters (i.e. when searching Bob Dylan, the search used might be Bo* Dyl* to include any potential misspellings or name variations).
As access to electronic court records has become easy to obtain there has been a proliferation of tenant screening companies. There’s an estimate of around 2,000 companies offering the service, however they are not required to register with any government agency. While the Fair Credit Reporting Act requires background screeners to “follow reasonable procedures to assure maximum possible accuracy,” the lack of registration has effectively limited enforcement options. Tenants who believe they have been rejected based on faulty background reports can file a complaint with the Federal Trade Commission or the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau or they can file a lawsuit.
The lesson for researchers and those seeking background reports is that there is no substitute for human review of critical information to ensure accuracy. The stakes are high when it comes to vetting; it pays to get it right.