Arnall Golden Gregory LLP is pleased to provide you with the Compliance News Flash. This weekly update is your source for timely background screening and immigration-related news that is important to your organization.

1. On August 28th, background screening company Global HR Research announced that it acquired background screening company easyBackgrounds. For more information from Global HR Research, click here.
2. The California Supreme Court upheld the constitutionality of California’s Investigative Consumer Reporting Agencies Act (ICRAA) in Connor v. First Student, Inc. The ICRAA and the Consumer Credit Reporting Agencies Act (CCRAA) both cover consumer reports. The Plaintiffs alleged that First Student, Inc. violated the ICRAA by not obtaining written authorization to conduct a background investigation. The Defendant claimed that the ICRAA was unconstitutionally vague because it overlaps with the CCRAA and thus it is impossible to determine with which law an employer must comply. The Court ruled that overlap between the two statutes does not render ICRAA unconstitutionally vague when the statutes are otherwise unambiguous. Meaning, employers must comply with both ICRAA and CCRAA when conducting background investigations in California. To read the full opinion of Connor v. First Student, Inc., click here. 

3. The California legislature sent a bill to Governor Brown’s desk that will require a consumer credit reporting agency (i.e., the credit bureaus) that owns, licenses, or maintains personal information about a California resident, or a 3rd party that maintains personal information about a California resident on behalf of a consumer credit reporting agency, that knows, or reasonably should know, that a computer system it owns, operates, or maintains, and for which it controls the security protocols, is subject to a security vulnerability (i.e., security incident or data breach) that poses a significant risk to the security of computerized data within the system that contains personal information, to take certain measures to protect that data, including implementing software updates, if it knows or reasonably should know that a software update is available to address the security vulnerability.

4. Employers note the following when re-verifying employees’ work authorization if those employees are working in the United States pursuant to participation under the Temporary Protected Status (TPS) program. USCIS updated the auto-extension period for El Salvador beyond September 5, 2018. In certain circumstances employees are eligible for another 180-day automatic extension of their work authorization through March 4, 2019. In addition, these employees may present a new document called a Notice of Continued Evidence of Work Authorization to demonstrate on-going work authorization for purposes of the Form I-9, along with their expired work permit. Same thing for Haiti. Employees lawfully working under TPS from Haiti are eligible for an auto-extension of work authorization for another 180 days, through January 17, 2019.

5. I previously reported about a new notice requirement under the Fair Credit Reporting Act (FCRA) that applies to background screeners and end-users of consumer reports. The new notice requirement is found in section 301 of S. 2155. Setting aside that the language could have been drafted better, the notice requirement about security freezes applies to all consumer reporting agencies (i.e., background screeners) when a consumer requests a file disclosure under section 609 of the FCRA. It arguably must also be provided in other instances when the summary of rights document must be provided to end-users and consumers. The new notice will be required as of September 21, 2018.