April

On April 23rd, Yahoo! Finance published an article summarizing two lawsuits against Starbucks Corporation for alleged violations of the Fair Credit Reporting Act (FCRA) during the background checks for prospective employees.

The two lawsuits will be combined in the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of Georgia in preparation for a settlement. The first lawsuit, filed in the U.S. District Court for the Western District of Washington, alleged that the plaintiff was denied a job at Starbucks due to inaccuracies on the plaintiff’s criminal record and that Starbucks did not reverse its adverse action when the plaintiff corrected the errors. The second lawsuit, filed in the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of Georgia, alleged that a Starbucks employee lost his job when a background check included criminal convictions for a different person by the same name.

The combined lawsuits claim that Starbucks allegedly violated the FCRA when the company:

• Failed to provide job applicants with pre-adverse action notifications;
• Failed to provide job applicants with a summary of their rights under the FCRA before conducting a background check;
• Failed to provide information about opportunities to correct errors in background checks.

Today, I am thrilled to announce that Verifile has been awarded the Queen’s Award for Enterprise in the category of International Trade. Our award recognises the outstanding growth in our overseas sales over the past six years.

The Queen’s Awards for Enterprise are the UK’s most prestigious business awards, recognising and celebrating business excellence across the UK.  Our award highlights the growing demand worldwide for pre- and post-employment screening, as organisations look to mitigate their recruitment risks and insider threats.

Our business is all about helping employers to mitigate their recruitment risks. These include the risk of not complying with industry regulations or internal company procedures or of exposing their business to fraud, theft, brand damage, fines or lawsuits. Employers are all too aware of the potential fall-out from hiring the wrong person – and the cost, which can be financial, reputational or even human. Increasingly, this is now a global undertaking, helping businesses from around the world to expand their workforces.

I’m delighted that all the hard work put in by the team to grow this important part of our business has now been recognised by this Queen’s Award. I’m also incredibly proud that an idea I had over fifteen years ago has taken hold to the extent that we’re in a position to claim such a prestigious award.

Established in 1965, the Queen’s Awards for Enterprise are designed to recognise the achievements of British businesses. Verifile now joins over 4,500 other businesses recognised for their export achievements in the programme’s 50-year history. 

We are elated to become the first screening company to receive this much-coveted honour, highlighting our status as a premium provider of global background screening services.

Eyal Ben Cohen
CEO
 
 

UK Government Issues Data Protection Guidance in the Event UK Leaves EU with "No Deal". The guide outlines how the data protection law will work in the event the UK leaves the EU without a deal.

The EU (Withdrawal) Act 2018 (EUWA) retains the GDPR in UK law. The fundamental principles, obligations and rights that organisations and data subjects have become familiar with will stay the same.

To ensure the UK data protection framework continues to operate effectively when the UK is no longer an EU Member State the Government will make appropriate changes to the GDPR and the Data Protection Act 2018 using regulation-making powers under the EUWA.