NYC Fair Chance Act Amendments

The New York City Council amended New York City's Fair Chance Act to significantly expand the scope of protections for applicants and employees with criminal charges or arrests. The amendments are effective on July 29, 2021.

Employers can only request and review criminal history information after favorably evaluating a candidate's non-criminal information. Additionally, employers utilizing background checks should have the consumer reporting agency separate reports so that reports containing criminal history information are only obtained and evaluated after all non-criminal information has been evaluated. Because motor vehicle/driving records often cannot be bifurcated to separate criminal and non-criminal information, employers must treat driving records as criminal history information.

Employers cannot discriminate against a current employee who is convicted during employment or against applicants and current employees with pending arrests. For convictions and pending arrests during employment, employers must consider a series of factors with the newly defined
and slightly different Fair Chance Factors applicable to the extended covered criminal records.

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