Utah background check laws for employers combine the state’s Employment Selection Procedures Act, the federal Fair Credit Reporting Act, EEOC guidance on criminal history, and a handful of Utah-specific rules on expunged records, social media, and driving records. Get the sequence right and the substance right, and most compliance risk goes away. Miss a step, and the exposure runs from $500 state fines to per-applicant FCRA damages that scale fast in a class action.
When You Can Ask for SSN, Date of Birth, and Driver License Number
The Utah Employment Selection Procedures Act (UESPA) bars employers from requesting an applicant’s Social Security number, date of birth, or driver license number before extending a job offer.1Utah Legislature. Utah Code 34-46-201 – Information Collected Application forms and interview questionnaires need to be scrubbed of those fields for pre-offer use.
There is one carve-out. You can collect those identifiers earlier if you need them to run a criminal background check, pull a credit report, obtain a driving record, or check your own internal records on whether the applicant previously worked for you. Two conditions attach: the request must be standard for everyone applying for that position, and the applicant must consent.1Utah Legislature. Utah Code 34-46-201 – Information Collected
Enforcement runs through the Utah Labor Commission’s Antidiscrimination and Labor Division. An applicant complaint triggers an adjudicative proceeding, and a finding of violation can produce a cease-and-desist order plus a fine of up to $500 per violation regardless of how many applicants were affected.2Utah Legislature. Utah Code 34-46-301 – Enforcement
FCRA Steps When You Use a Screening Company
Any time a third-party consumer reporting agency runs the background check, the Fair Credit Reporting Act sets the process. Before you order the report, give the applicant a standalone written disclosure that a background check will be conducted. It cannot be buried in the employment application and cannot be combined with other forms. Then get written authorization.3Office of the Law Revision Counsel. 15 USC 1681b – Permissible Purposes of Consumer Reports
If something in the report may cost the applicant the job, a two-step adverse action process kicks in. First, send a pre-adverse action notice with a copy of the report and a summary of the applicant’s rights. Give the applicant a reasonable window to review and dispute errors; five to seven business days is the widely followed benchmark. Only after that window can you send the final adverse action notice.4Federal Trade Commission. Background Checks on Prospective Employees Keep Required Disclosures Simple
The common mistake is sending the denial and the report at the same time. That collapses the two steps into one and denies the applicant a chance to correct errors, which is enough by itself to draw an FCRA suit.
Using Criminal History Without Running Afoul of Title VII
Utah does not ban private employers from considering convictions, but blanket disqualification rules can violate Title VII when they disproportionately affect a protected group. The EEOC’s guidance directs employers to weigh criminal history against three factors from Green v. Missouri Pacific Railroad:
- The nature and gravity of the offense. A fraud conviction weighs differently for a bookkeeping role than an old bar fight.
- The time elapsed since the conviction or completion of the sentence.
- The nature of the job being sought.
After screening on those factors, the EEOC recommends giving anyone excluded the chance to explain through an individualized assessment: evidence of rehabilitation, completion of treatment, steady employment since. The only cases where the EEOC treats the individualized assessment as unnecessary are rare ones where the link between the offense and the role is obvious on its face, such as a child abuse conviction for a daycare position.5U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission. Enforcement Guidance on the Consideration of Arrest and Conviction Records in Employment Decisions
Some Utah industries layer on their own requirements. Healthcare facilities, schools, and financial institutions often must run background checks as a condition of state licensing, and specific convictions may be automatic disqualifiers under those regulatory frameworks regardless of EEOC guidance.
Ban-the-Box Applies Only to Public Employers
Utah’s “Reducing Barriers to Employment for Individuals with Criminal Records” law restricts when public employers can ask about criminal history. State agencies, state universities, municipalities, counties, school districts, and special service districts cannot exclude an applicant from an initial interview based on a past conviction. In practice, the application form cannot include criminal history questions, and the employer cannot ask about convictions before the first interview. If no interview is conducted, the employer must wait until extending a conditional offer.6Utah Legislature. Utah Code 34-52-101 – Reducing Barriers to Employment for Individuals with Criminal Records
This does not apply to private employers, and even public employers may ask about convictions after the initial interview and factor that history into the final decision. The restriction is on timing, not on whether criminal history can be considered.
Expunged and Sealed Records Are Off Limits
When a Utah court grants expungement, the arrest, investigation, and conviction are treated as if they never happened. The person may answer any inquiry, including job application questions, as though the event never occurred.7Utah Legislature. Utah Code 77-40a-401 – Effect of Expungement Government agencies holding expunged records cannot disclose them without a court order except in narrow statutory circumstances.8Utah Legislature. Utah Code 77-40a-403 – Release and Use of Expunged Records Agencies For an employer, that means an expunged record should not appear on a background check, and if you somehow learn of one, you cannot use it in the hiring decision.
Utah’s Clean Slate law adds a further wrinkle. Lower-level offenses, including Class B and C misdemeanors, infractions, and Class A drug possession charges, are being cleared automatically once the waiting period runs. As of January 1, 2026, the court system identifies and clears qualifying cases without any action by the individual.9Utah State Judiciary. Expunging Adult Criminal Records Applicants with older low-level convictions may legitimately have nothing to disclose.
Sealed records, most commonly juvenile records, work differently. Sealing restricts public access but does not erase the record. You generally cannot access a sealed record without a court order authorizing it.
Social Media Accounts
Utah’s Internet Employment Privacy Act makes it illegal to ask an employee or applicant for usernames, passwords, or any credentials that would grant access to a personal internet account. Retaliating against or refusing to hire someone who declines is also prohibited.10Utah Legislature. Utah Code 34-48-201 – Employer May Not Request Disclosure of Information Related to Personal Internet Account
The law reaches personal accounts only. Employer-provided accounts used for business remain within your monitoring rights, and publicly visible social media content is fair game. You just cannot demand credentials to see what sits behind a privacy setting.
Driving Records
Driving records are protected under both Utah’s Government Records Access and Management Act and the federal Driver’s Privacy Protection Act. An employer needs a permissible purpose under the DPPA to obtain a motor vehicle record.11Legal Information Institute. Utah Admin Code R708-36-1 – Purpose For verifying a commercial driver’s license, the DPPA explicitly allows employer access without individual consent.12Office of the Law Revision Counsel. 18 US Code 2721 – Prohibition on Release and Use of Certain Personal Information From State Motor Vehicle Records For non-CDL driving records, get written consent from the applicant so the request clearly falls within a recognized permissible use.
What It Costs to Run a Check Through BCI
Employers running criminal history checks directly through the Bureau of Criminal Identification pay the following, effective July 1, 2025:13Utah Department of Public Safety. Employment Volunteer Background Checks
- Name and date-of-birth check: $20
- Fingerprint-based check through the Western Identification Network: $20
Fingerprint-based checks match biometric data rather than relying on name and date of birth, which can produce false positives for common names. Some licensed positions require fingerprint checks by statute. Third-party screening companies charge more than the direct BCI fee because they add a service charge.
What Non-Compliance Costs
Federal exposure runs through the FCRA. A willful violation carries statutory damages of $100 to $1,000 per affected consumer, plus potential punitive damages and the applicant’s attorney fees.14Office of the Law Revision Counsel. 15 US Code 1681n – Civil Liability for Willful Noncompliance Negligent violations, where you failed to follow proper procedures without intent to break the law, still expose you to actual damages plus attorney fees.15Office of the Law Revision Counsel. 15 USC 1681o – Civil Liability for Negligent Noncompliance In class actions with large applicant pools, per-person damages add up quickly.
State exposure runs through the Utah Labor Commission’s Antidiscrimination and Labor Division, which enforces both the Utah Antidiscrimination Act and UESPA.16Utah Labor Commission. Utah Antidiscrimination and Labor Division UESPA violations draw fines of up to $500 per violation plus cease-and-desist orders.2Utah Legislature. Utah Code 34-46-301 – Enforcement Using expunged records in hiring decisions creates separate legal exposure under the expungement statutes, and improperly accessing or disclosing protected records under GRAMA can produce claims from the affected individual.