Why rules may be bad for business

The Oklahoma Supreme Court rules that curb access to personal information in court records could be a death sentence for one Oklahoma City business.

David Blanton's 2-year-old employment screening firm — PreHire Screening Services — performs pre-employment criminal background checks for clients, including many Oklahoma businesses.

But Blanton said his company won't be able to do its job if he can't accurately match and confirm individuals with background information.

The court's recent decision will remove court filings from the Internet and prohibit anyone from filing court records with personal identification information such as bank accounts, Social Security numbers, birth dates and home addresses. The rules are scheduled to go into effect June 10.

Blanton said even if he has to make time to check filings at courthouses instead of getting them online, the greater issue is that he won't be able to retrieve a complete birth date.

"As a background screening company, we depend on the full date of birth as a primary personal identifier to confirm that a criminal record belongs or does not belong to an individual,” Blanton said. "If we're not positive that a criminal record belongs to an applicant,” PreHire Screening Services can't make an accurate recommendation to clients.

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