ATLANTA, August 15, 2023 – Equifax® (NYSE: EFX) has launched Smart Screen™, a new portfolio of consumer reports. Leveraging the Equifax Cloud™ and the TotalVerify™ data hub, Smart Screen accelerates the delivery of criminal background checks when required by background screeners, employers and government agencies as part of their established hiring and background screening processes.
“While criminal background checks are a component of many background screening processes, they can often take days or weeks to complete,” said Brian Kelly, Senior Vice President, Insights, Equifax Workforce Solutions. “Smart Screen consumer reports can help move this process forward faster than ever. Smart Screen leverages an expansive, proprietary U.S. incarceration network covering approximately 185 million incarceration records from more than 1,900 county jails and 30 state prison systems, with data updated as frequently as every 15 minutes.”
Smart Screen reports instantly inform a background screener, employer or government agency when an applicant has no records within a proprietary U.S. incarceration data network. Available to credentialed users through web-based interfaces, Smart Screen ‘no incarceration records found’ reports are consumer reports as defined by the Fair Credit Reporting Act (FCRA) and can only be used by organizations with a permissible purpose. When a Smart Screen report is not available, the system provides a ‘more research is needed’ output, which is not a consumer report and may not be used for a permissible purpose.
“Criminal background checks are one component of our clients’ comprehensive background screening processes, and Equifax Workforce Solutions has several solutions and tools that can help with this process. We believe that data-driven decisions can encourage practices like fair chance hiring, an opportunity for organizations to expand their candidate pools and increase employment opportunities for people with criminal histories,” continued Kelly.
Smart Screen joins the extensive Equifax Workforce Solutions portfolio of data-driven solutions that support pre-employment, government, lending and other use cases. The TotalVerify data hub is comprised of proprietary Equifax and partner-sourced data types, including employment and income information from The Work Number® as well as data covering education, professional certifications, identity, incarceration, sanctions and more. More information on the Smart Screen portfolio of consumer reports can be found here.
ABOUT EQUIFAX INC. At Equifax (NYSE: EFX), we believe knowledge drives progress. As a global data, analytics, and technology company, we play an essential role in the global economy by helping financial institutions, companies, employers, and government agencies make critical decisions with greater confidence. Our unique blend of differentiated data, analytics, and cloud technology drives insights to power decisions to move people forward. Headquartered in Atlanta and supported by 14,000 employees worldwide, Equifax operates or has investments in 24 countries in North America, Central and South America, Europe, and the Asia Pacific region. For more information, visit Equifax.com.
FOR MORE INFORMATION: Daniel Jenkins for Equifax mediainquiries@equifax.com