Redaction of Identifiers by the Courts in Michigan and California Pose Challenges for Background Checks

AGG Talks: Background Screening

The Michigan Supreme Court has ordered Dates of Birth (DOBs) to be redacted when releasing court records, which will make background checks involving Michigan court records more difficult. While the effective date for this change was recently delayed, once implemented this change has the potential to disrupt background checks for Michiganders looking for work and companies performing background checks. Similarly, in California, a recent state court decision restricts the use of DOBs when searching court records using electronic criminal indexes and redacts DOBs in records provided by courthouses. In this episode, AGG partner and co-chair of the Background Screening industry team, Montserrat Miller, and Kevin Coy, AGG partner and co-chair of the Data Privacy practice, discuss both the Michigan Supreme Court’s Order and the California litigation and their impact on the use of a key identifier, dates of birth, when preparing background check reports.