Real-World Examples

There is a growing rise in legal and regulatory scrutiny regarding social media background checks. A few illustrative cases are discussed here.

FTC v. Social Intelligence Corp.

On May 9, 2011, the FTC’s Division of Privacy and Identity Protection sent a “no action” letter to Social Intelligence Corporation (“Social Intelligence”), “an Internet and social media background screening service used by employers in pre-employment background screening.”¹⁹ The FTC found that Social Intelligence is a consumer reporting agency “because it assembles or evaluates consumer report information that is furnished to third parties that use such information as a factor in establishing a consumer’s eligibility for employment.”²⁰ The FTC stated that the same rules that apply to consumer reporting agencies—including, notably, the FCRA—apply equally in the context of social networking sites.