Georgia Background Check Laws: Disclosure, Adverse Action, and Penalties

Georgia background check laws for employers layer federal Fair Credit Reporting Act (FCRA) rules on top of state requirements built around the Georgia Crime Information Center (GCIC). In practical terms, that means an employer must get standalone written consent before pulling any consumer report, must send a pre-adverse action notice with a copy of the report before rejecting anyone based on it, and if the rejection rests on a GCIC criminal history record, must also tell the applicant what the record contained and how it affected the decision. Missing any of those steps creates civil exposure under the FCRA and, in the Georgia-specific case, a misdemeanor.

Consent and the Standalone Disclosure

Before pulling a consumer report on an applicant, the FCRA requires two things: a clear written disclosure that a background check will be run, and the applicant’s written authorization to run it. The disclosure has to appear as a standalone document. It cannot be buried inside a job application, stapled to an offer letter, or mixed with other terms and conditions.¹ The applicant can sign both the disclosure and the authorization on the same page, but the page itself has to be about the background check and nothing else.

This is the single most common compliance failure. Employers who tack a consent paragraph onto a broader application form violate the standalone-document rule, and that violation is a common basis for class action lawsuits under the FCRA. Fixing it costs nothing. Getting it wrong is expensive.

For criminal history requests specifically, Georgia law requires that the request submitted to the GCIC include either the applicant’s fingerprints or a signed consent form with the applicant’s full name, address, Social Security number, and date of birth.²

How to Actually Pull the Record

Private Georgia employers obtain criminal history records by submitting a request through the GCIC, which sits within the Georgia Bureau of Investigation and serves as the state’s central repository for criminal history data.³ As of January 2025, a Georgia-only criminal history search costs $30, and a combined Georgia and FBI check costs $42. If the applicant is fingerprinted through the Georgia Applicant Processing Service (GAPS), those fees rise to roughly $40 and $52. Volunteer checks start at $28 for Georgia-only.⁴ Fingerprint-based checks are more accurate than name-based searches, which can miss records or return false matches.

Employment verification through a third-party service also qualifies as a consumer report under the FCRA, so the standalone disclosure and written consent rules apply the same way they apply to a criminal history request.⁵ Credit reports require the same written consent and, if used against the applicant, the same adverse action process.

For driving positions, an employer pulls a motor vehicle record from the Georgia Department of Driver Services, which will not release the record without the license holder’s written permission. That authorization is only valid for 60 days unless specifically renewed. It has to include the driver’s name, date of birth, and license number, and the details on the form must match the driver’s record exactly or the request will be denied.⁶

What Can and Can’t Appear on the Report

Consumer reporting agencies compiling background checks are barred by the FCRA from reporting arrest records, civil suits, and other adverse information (other than criminal convictions) that is more than seven years old.⁷ Dismissed charges, acquittals, and nolle prosequi dispositions over seven years old should not show up on a report.

Criminal convictions have no time limit under federal law, and Georgia has not imposed a shorter reporting window. A twenty-year-old felony conviction can still appear.

Separately, some Georgia records are restricted from non-criminal-justice access under O.C.G.A. § 35-3-37, meaning private employers do not see them at all. Restricted records include cases never referred for prosecution once specified time limits have passed (two years for misdemeanors, four years for most felonies, seven years for serious violent felonies and certain sexual offenses involving minors), along with charges that were dismissed, nolle prossed, or resulted in acquittal.⁸ Records sealed under Georgia’s First Offender Act likewise disappear from standard employer checks, though prosecutors and certain other officials retain access.⁹ For the employer, the practical point is simple: what the GCIC returns is what the employer may use, and the employer should not go looking behind the record.

Adverse Action: The Two-Track Notice Process

Rejecting an applicant based on the report triggers two separate obligations in Georgia, one federal and one state, and both have to be satisfied.

The FCRA track comes first. Before taking adverse action based on any consumer report, the employer must give the applicant a copy of the report and a written summary of the applicant’s rights under the FCRA.¹ This is the pre-adverse action notice. Its purpose is to let the applicant review the report and dispute errors before the decision is final. Only after a reasonable waiting period can the employer send the final adverse action notice.

The Georgia track is separate. Under O.C.G.A. § 35-3-34, an employer that obtains a criminal history record from the GCIC and makes a negative employment decision based on that record must tell the applicant three things: that a record was obtained from the GCIC, the specific contents of the record, and the effect the record had on the decision. Failure to make this disclosure is a misdemeanor.² This runs independently of the FCRA. An employer who satisfies the FCRA but forgets the Georgia-specific disclosure has still committed a criminal offense under state law.

Using the Record: EEOC Limits

Georgia law does not require that a criminal record be “relevant” to the job before an employer can access it. Title VII of the Civil Rights Act, however, controls what the employer can do with what it finds. The EEOC’s enforcement guidance is direct on this: a criminal-record exclusion that is neutral on its face can still violate Title VII if it disproportionately screens out people of a particular race or national origin and is not job-related and consistent with business necessity.¹⁰ An arrest alone does not prove criminal conduct, so blanket exclusions based on arrest records are almost never defensible.

The safer approach is an individualized assessment: weigh the nature and gravity of the offense, how much time has passed, and the responsibilities of the specific position.¹¹ Rigid “no felons” policies without that analysis are what tend to draw EEOC enforcement.

Extra Requirements for Care Facility Employers

Personal care homes, assisted living communities, private home care providers, and home health agencies face additional screening duties under O.C.G.A. § 31-7-353. These facilities must submit fingerprint-based criminal background check applications to the Georgia Department of Community Health for every owner and every employee who has direct access to patients or residents. The GCIC processes the fingerprints, transmits them to the FBI for a national search, and notifies the department of any findings within ten days.¹²

“Employee” is defined broadly to include housekeepers, maintenance workers, dieticians, and volunteers performing employee-equivalent duties. It does not include physicians, nurses, pharmacists, or dentists holding separate professional licenses, and it does not include contractors whose work is unrelated to patient care, such as IT or construction.¹³

Penalties for Getting It Wrong

An employer who willfully violates the FCRA faces statutory damages of $100 to $1,000 per affected consumer, plus actual damages, and courts can add punitive damages and attorney fees.¹⁴ Per person the numbers look modest. FCRA cases are frequently filed as class actions, and $1,000 multiplied by every applicant who received a defective disclosure form scales quickly. Negligent violations expose the employer to actual damages and attorney fees, but not statutory or punitive damages.¹⁵

On the state side, failure to make the O.C.G.A. § 35-3-34 disclosure after an adverse decision based on a GCIC record is a misdemeanor.² Where deceptive practices are involved, the Georgia Fair Business Practices Act allows the Attorney General to seek injunctions, and violating one carries civil penalties up to $25,000 per violation, with each day of a continuing violation counted separately.¹⁶

What Georgia Does Not Require

Georgia has not extended “ban the box” rules to private employers. A 2015 executive order removed criminal history questions from the initial application for state government jobs, but no statewide statute mandates fair chance hiring in the private sector. Private employers in Georgia can ask about criminal history on the initial application, subject to the FCRA, the Georgia disclosure requirement, and EEOC anti-discrimination limits described above. Local ordinances may add their own rules, so employers with operations in multiple jurisdictions should check what applies at each site.

1
Office of the Law Revision Counsel. 15 USC 1681b – Permissible Purposes of Consumer Reports
2
Justia Law. Georgia Code 35-3-34 – Disclosure and Dissemination of Criminal Records to Private Persons and Businesses
3
Georgia Bureau of Investigation. Georgia Crime Information Center
4
Georgia Bureau of Investigation. GCIC Fees Effective January 1, 2025
5
Federal Trade Commission. What Employment Background Screening Companies Need to Know About the Fair Credit Reporting Act
6
Georgia Secretary of State. Access for Motor Vehicle Records
7
Office of the Law Revision Counsel. 15 USC 1681c – Requirements Relating to Information Contained in Consumer Reports
8
Justia Law. Georgia Code 35-3-37 – Criminal History Record Information
9
Justia Law. Georgia Code 42-8-62.1 – Limiting Public Access to First Offender Sentencing Information
10
U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission. Enforcement Guidance on the Consideration of Arrest and Conviction Records in Employment Decisions Under Title VII of the Civil Rights Act
11
U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission. Questions and Answers About the EEOCs Enforcement Guidance on the Consideration of Arrest and Conviction Records
12
Justia Law. Georgia Code 31-7-353 – Records Check Application
13
Justia Law. Georgia Code 31-7-351 – Definitions
14
Office of the Law Revision Counsel. 15 USC 1681n – Civil Liability for Willful Noncompliance
15
Office of the Law Revision Counsel. 15 USC 1681o – Civil Liability for Negligent Noncompliance
16
Justia Law. Georgia Code 10-1-405 – Civil Penalties and Individual Liability