Top Stories
Derek Hinton, "In My Opinion"
November 25, 2013 posted by Steve Brownstein
Congratulations to NAPBS—Our Industry Has Come a Long Way
When I remember the days of working for a CRA in the 1980s, I am astounded at how much our industry has progressed. The “Guidebook” for CRAs at that time was pretty much the Fair Credit Reporting Act—and that was it. And to be sure, the FCRA was even more “credit” heavy then than it is now after several amendments.
Identity theft, secure transmission, best practices for references, criminal record reporting and use, ban-the-box, DPPA, consumer compliance, data standards…the list goes on for those big issues that were not given much attention or were still yet to come. “Secure transmission of data for consumer protection” was novel. (Is that 300 BAUD Modem secure?) Now an entire section of the NAPBS Accreditation Standard deals with consumer protection. There are literally books that will help you decode and understand an arcane code found on an MVR from across the country. Books telling you what criminal record data you can report and what criminal data an employer may consider.
Probably the most significant factor in our industry’s growing professionalism has been the creation and growth of NAPBS. And one of the more significant actions that NAPBS has done is create a professionalism standard—the NAPBS Accreditation Standard.
Several years ago, the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) indicated that it would like to see more regulation of CRAs. Industry Regulation typically comes from either the government or an internal accreditation effort. An internal group usually knows more about the subject and has more “feet-on-the-ground” experience and wisdom than the government.
At about the same time, we in the industry recognized the widely varying processes and standards in the industry. Employers were also uncertain about best practices and, without specific industry knowledge, wanted assistance in qualifying CRA's.
The NAPBS Accreditation program provided a means for firms to agree to abide by industry best practices as defined by the Background Screening Credentialing Council (BSCC). They document these practices and they demonstrate adherence through both desk and onsite audits by an independent auditor. This is a far cry from a firm throwing out a shingle that says “I Are an Employment Screening Company.” While a firm who is not accredited may have similar standards and processes than one who is, it is easier for an employer to rely upon the experts auditing the CRA than to make that determination themselves.
As an industry, we have a ways to go. It’s hard to know how many employment screening firms are in existence, but I’ve heard the number is probably around 2000. There are a little over 400 employment screening firms as members of NAPBS (there are more members that are suppliers to the industry). Clearly, we need to get more CRAs on board with NAPBS.
At the time of this writing there are now 42 officially accredited CRAs (there’s more coming) so around 10% of NAPBS member CRAs are accredited. Greatly increasing that percentage is one of the best things we can do as an industry to increase our professionalism and lobbying effectiveness.
Derek Hinton is President of CRAzoom (www.crazoom.com) a company providing complete accreditation assistance to CRAs.
