Claims Reports are not an identified purpose under the FCRA thus the FCRA does not apply to claims investigation or claims monitoring reports. The FCRA applies to reports produced for the following purposes:

(A) intends to use the information in connection with a credit transaction involving the consumer on whom the information is to be furnished and involving the extension of credit to, or review or collection of an account of, the consumer; or

(B) intends to use the information for employment purposes; or

(C) intends to use the information in connection with the underwriting of insurance involving the consumer; or

(D) intends to use the information in connection with a determination of the consumer’s eligibility for a license or other benefit granted by a governmental instrumentality required by law to consider an applicant’s financial responsibility or status; or

(E) intends to use the information, as a potential investor or servicer, or current insurer, in connection with a valuation of, or an assessment of the credit or prepayment risks associated with, an existing credit obligation; or

(F) otherwise has a legitimate business need for the information—

(i) in connection with a business transaction that is initiated by the consumer; or

(ii) to review an account to determine whether the consumer continues to meet the terms of the account.

When an Insured or Claimant files a claim, the claimant is providing consent by means of policy language to perform a social media investigation of publicly available online information pertaining to them. The online content being reviewed has been created by the Insured or Claimant and therefore does not violate the terms of social networks and other user content publishing sites.

No. Social Intelligence only stores information on job applicants for consumer disclosure and legal compliance purposes such as the Fair Credit Reporting Act. Our storage maintains a verifiable chain-of-custody in case the information is ever needed for consumer disclosure or legal compliance reasons. New reports are generated for every job applicant, including those that have been previously screened by Social Intelligence.

We do not collect or store information on a job applicant without the applicant’s express written consent. As the job applicant is the publisher of this information, they voluntarily allow the employer or the Consumer Reporting Agency to utilize this information for the purposes of a pre-employment screen.

A screenshot is taken at the request of the employer for a variety of reasons. The screenshot is redacted to remove protected information that is not legally allowable for hiring purposes. The screenshot is stored solely for consumer disclosure purposes and is not utilized in future pre-employment reports.

Social Intelligence is a Consumer Reporting Agency under the FCRA, and it adheres to the requirements and guidelines set forth by the FCRA, including its authorization, certification, notice, and consumer dispute resolution requirements. For more information, click here.

Social Intelligence requires the employer to gain consent from the applicant for a third party to perform a social media background check. The online content being reviewed has been created by the applicant and therefore does not violate the terms of social networks and other user content publishing sites.

Social Intelligence acts as a Consumer Reporting Agency (as such term is defined under the FCRA) for prospective employers to compile a report on applicants based on an employer’s pre-defined criteria. We act at the request of an employer and the permission of the consumer.

Yes, Social Intelligence is a Consumer Reporting Agency. We maintain “reasonable procedures” designed to ensure that the consumer report is only used for permissible purposes, require employers to obtain signed Disclosure and Authorization forms from the individuals to be background checked, ensure employers follow FCRA Adverse Action procedures, and have a complete dispute resolution process.

When employers attempt to find and review candidates’ social media themselves, they are exposed to protected class information and other irrelevant information that cannot be considered in the hiring process. Social Intelligence redacts this information from reports so employers only see information that matches their legally acceptable criteria. Additionally, our processes are standardized and consistent, which allows for the utmost adherence to compliance laws such as the Fair Credit Reporting Act.

Social Intelligence and the traditional search engines vary in many ways. Search engines provide unstructured, ad-hoc results that expose everything there is about a given applicant, including personal information not legally allowable or not relevant in the hiring process. Examples of this include race, color, religion, sex, national origin, age, gender identity, disability status, veteran status, and genetic information. Social Intelligence Hiring has proprietary tools that collect publicly available, user-generated content including social media to find and only report information that matches the employer’s pre-defined criteria. The employer is never exposed to anything that falls into Federal and State protected class information.

No, Social Intelligence Hiring is a separate background screening process that can be used in conjunction with a traditional background check, which may include criminal record checks, credit history, and past employment verification to assess a candidate’s comprehensive background.

In the event an employer chooses to not hire an applicant (take “adverse action”) based on a report Social Intelligence has produced, the applicant is sent a “pre-adverse action notice” with a consumer report which includes exactly what the employer reviewed as well as what the Social Intelligence team based its report on. The applicant is given detailed instructions on the dispute resolution process. After the report is provided, the consumer has five days to dispute any findings.

The consumer reports provided by Social Intelligence contain the consumer’s full name, email address, and permanent address, as well as employer information and a time-stamp history, screen shots of the material that matches the employers’ pre-defined criteria, and comments provided by the Social Intelligence team concerning its findings.

- Social Intelligence protects job applicants from discrimination and from not being evaluated based on protected class information
- Social Intelligence protects job applicants by allowing the employer to conduct “fair and consistent” hiring practices
- Social Intelligence protects employers from allegations of discrimination
- Social Intelligence protects employers from negligent hiring
- Social Intelligence protects employers from being at a hiring disadvantage
- Social Intelligence helps employers improve their hiring results

While the financial benefits of minimized legal risk and better hires can be hard to measure, significant quantifiable data – such as better employee performance and reduced risk of litigation – has a very material impact on the bottom line.

Discrimination is a major issue when hiring new employees. Social Intelligence Hiring is designed to create equal opportunity for all potential hires by concealing any material that falls under U.S. Federal and State protected classes. According to United States anti-discrimination law, the following are characteristics and factors that cannot be considered as a reason to withhold an employment offer: Race, color, religion, sex, national origin, age, gender identity, disability status, veteran status, and genetic information. By removing this information, the employer can confidently make hiring decisions free from any bias.

Yes, we can integrate with most major human resource management systems.

A social media policy is a company policy that clearly defines acceptable and/or non-acceptable social media use. Such policies may include social media use in the workplace as well as after work hours. We advise a company to work with employment counsel to construct a social media policy.

As we only run reports and collect data on job applicants that have met pre-defined criteria requested by an employer, we do not have anything on record for individuals that have not explicitly approved the use of social media as part of their background screening for a given employer. Additionally, reports are only generated based on employer pre-defined criteria, such as racist remarks, illegal activities, sexually explicit material, etc. All other information is ignored. Images contained in the report that are Federally and State protected are redacted (blacked out) in the reports, so the employer is never exposed to any information that is not legally allowable for hiring. As a result of how the service works, it is not technically or legally possible for us to run reports for individuals.

Additionally, we are not building a “database” on individuals that will be evaluated each time they apply for a job and potentially could be used adversely even if they have cleaned up their profiles. It is important for job applicants to understand we are not storing their historical information to be used the next time they apply for a job. Data is archived purely for FCRA compliance reasons in order to provide a verifiable chain-of-custody in case the information is ever needed for legal reasons. It cannot and will not be used for any other purposes. We are legally obligated to conduct a brand new search each time a social media background check is ordered.

Finally, in the event a job applicant meets the employer pre-defined criteria and a report is generated and the employer decides to take negative action as a result of the report, the job applicant is provided with the copy of the report with clear instructions on how to dispute the findings in the event the applicant feels that an error was made.