Slashdot reader dcblogs writes: Criminal background checks that incorrectly identify an applicant as a thief or sex offender happen more often than many expect. This story reviewed more than 75 lawsuits against background checks firms, spoke with plaintiff attorneys and industry experts to paint a picture of an industry that can ruin lives in minutes. Job applicants are labeled thieves and sex offenders by incorrect reports, and job candidates may protest, but it may not do them any good. Employers may drop them as damaged goods before the correction.
From the article: Some of the errors detailed in lawsuits against background check firms are inexplicable and show a lack of basic attention to detail. Common mistakes include mismatched names and addresses. One background check lawsuit alleged that the first name of Ashley was misidentified as Alysha. In another case, two people with the same first and last name were mixed up despite their distinct middle names: Magdalena and Elena... In another lawsuit, an applicant with a middle name of Scot (one T) was confused with someone whose middle name was Scott (two T's). A background check firm told one job applicant that his Social Security number was in the government's "Death Master File...."
"The candidate may protest. But by then, HR has likely dropped the candidate in an effort to fill an open position," the article points out, offering one example where a corrected background check then arrived, but several weeks later. (The man's lawyer believes it's common for employers to then still refuse to consider an applicaton, simply because "first impressions are everything.")

The article adds that the U.S. Consumer Financial Protection Bureau is now "threatening enforcement actions in concert with the U.S. Federal Trade Commission and Department of Justice." They've already issued an advisory in November calling out "shoddy name matching procedures" used to link people with criminal and other records, and warned that "Even ostensibly low error rates can harm significant numbers of consumers" — especially since more than 90% of U.S. employers use background check data in their hiring processes.