You can run a background check on a minor, but the process is not the same as screening an adult: because someone under 18 generally cannot enter a binding agreement, a parent or legal guardian has to sign the disclosure and authorization, and the report itself is narrowed by juvenile-record protections, federal education-privacy law, and the applicant’s thin credit and work history. Get the paperwork wrong and the Fair Credit Reporting Act puts real money on the line, so the mechanics matter.
Who Has to Give Consent
Minors generally lack the legal capacity to authorize a background check on themselves. A parent or legal guardian has to provide that authorization instead. In most states the age of majority is 18, though a few set it at 19 or 21, so “minor” does not mean the same thing everywhere.
When an employer or organization uses a third-party screening company for employment or volunteer purposes, the federal Fair Credit Reporting Act controls the process. The FCRA requires two things before a consumer report can be pulled: a clear written disclosure telling the subject that a background check may be obtained, and written authorization from the subject allowing it.1Office of the Law Revision Counsel. 15 U.S. Code 1681b – Permissible Purposes of Consumer Reports Because the minor cannot legally give that authorization, the parent or guardian signs both documents on the minor’s behalf.
One formatting rule trips up a lot of organizations. The disclosure must be a standalone document. It cannot be buried inside an application, tucked next to a liability waiver, or bundled with other paperwork. The authorization can appear on the same page as the disclosure, but nothing else can. Rolling the disclosure into a multi-page application packet violates the statute even if no one reads the fine print.
What Actually Shows Up on the Report
A background check on someone under 18 looks nothing like an adult report. Most of the records that would populate an adult file either do not exist yet or are legally off-limits.
Juvenile Court Records
The juvenile justice system treats its proceedings differently from adult criminal court. Outcomes are called adjudications, not convictions, and they are generally shielded from public access. The reasoning is straightforward: attaching a permanent criminal label to a teenager undermines the rehabilitative purpose of the system.
How much protection a juvenile record actually receives depends heavily on the state. Only about ten states keep all juvenile records fully confidential regardless of the offense. A larger group make at least some juvenile information publicly accessible, and a handful treat juvenile records as essentially public with limited exceptions. The common belief that juvenile records are always sealed oversimplifies the reality.
There is a practical wrinkle here. Even when a state seals or expunges a juvenile record, private data-mining companies may still have copies in their databases from before the record was sealed. Those stale records can surface on commercial background reports. When that happens, the subject or their parent has the right to dispute the inaccuracy with the screening company.
Adult Court Records
When a minor is charged with a serious crime and prosecuted in adult court, those records are public just like any other adult criminal case. A conviction in adult court creates a permanent record that will appear on a standard background check regardless of the defendant’s age at the time of the offense.
Education Records
School records are protected by the Family Educational Rights and Privacy Act. FERPA covers grades, transcripts, disciplinary files, health records at the K-12 level, and anything else directly related to a student and maintained by the school.2U.S. Department of Education. What Is an Education Record? Schools cannot release these records without signed, dated consent from a parent specifying what records may be disclosed, the purpose of the disclosure, and who will receive them.3U.S. Department of Education. What Must a Consent to Disclose Education Records Contain? A screening company has no independent way to pull school records without going through this process.
Credit History
Most minors have no credit history, so a credit report typically comes back empty. Exceptions include cases where a parent has co-signed on a loan or added the minor as an authorized user. Identity theft is worth flagging too. Criminals sometimes target minors’ Social Security numbers precisely because no one is monitoring them, and a child may not discover accounts opened in their name until they first apply for credit years later.4Consumer Advice. New Protections Available for Minors Under 16 If a teenager’s report unexpectedly turns up credit activity, that could be the first sign of a problem.
Social Media Limits
Some employers review applicants’ publicly available social media profiles. No federal law prohibits this. Roughly half the states, however, bar employers from requesting social media login credentials or passwords from job applicants, and those laws also commonly prohibit requiring applicants to open their accounts in front of an employer or to change their privacy settings. Publicly visible posts remain fair game where those laws apply; anything behind a privacy wall is off-limits unless the applicant volunteers it.
For minors, these protections take on extra weight. Asking a teenager to hand over a password creates obvious power-dynamic concerns. Organizations screening someone under 18 should stick to publicly available information and never request login credentials, regardless of whether state law explicitly covers the situation.
The Process, Step by Step
- Collect identifying information. You need the minor’s full legal name, date of birth, and current residential address. Screening companies match records by these identifiers, so accuracy matters.
- Provide the standalone disclosure. Give the parent or guardian a written document stating that a background check will be conducted. Nothing else belongs on it.
- Obtain written authorization. The parent or guardian signs the authorization, which may appear on the same page as the disclosure. Keep the signed form on file.
- Submit to an FCRA-compliant screening company. Most providers use a secure online portal to receive the minor’s information and the signed authorization.
- Review the report and make the decision in compliance with all applicable laws.
Reputable screening providers supply standardized disclosure and authorization templates designed to satisfy the FCRA’s formatting requirements. Drafting your own forms is risky unless an attorney has reviewed them, because small deviations from the statutory language create liability.
Work permits and age certificates are a separate matter. Federal child labor rules under the Fair Labor Standards Act do not require them, but many states do, and employers can keep an age certificate on file as a defense against unintentional violations of child labor rules.5U.S. Department of Labor. Fact Sheet 43 – Child Labor Provisions of the Fair Labor Standards Act6U.S. Department of Labor. FLSA Child Labor Rules – Records as a Defense That paperwork is not part of the background check, though the two often get gathered at the same time.
If the Report Turns Up Something Negative
An organization that decides not to hire or place a minor based on the report cannot simply reject the applicant and move on. The FCRA’s adverse action process requires a specific sequence of notices.
Before the final decision, the organization must provide the applicant (through the parent or guardian) with a copy of the report and a summary of their rights under the FCRA. This pre-adverse action step gives the family a chance to review the information and flag any errors before the decision becomes final.7Consumer Advice. Employer Background Checks and Your Rights
If the organization then proceeds, it must send a final notice that includes the name, address, and phone number of the screening company, a statement that the screening company did not make the hiring decision, and notice of the applicant’s right to dispute inaccurate information and to request a free copy of the report within 60 days.8Office of the Law Revision Counsel. 15 U.S. Code 1681m – Requirements on Users of Consumer Reports
To dispute information, the parent contacts the screening company directly, explains the error, and provides supporting documentation. If the company corrects the report, the parent can ask that the updated version be sent back to the employer. This matters more than people realize when screening minors, because stale or mismatched juvenile records are one of the most common sources of inaccurate report data.
What It Costs to Get It Wrong
Organizations that skip the disclosure, skip the authorization, or ignore the adverse action requirements expose themselves to real liability under the FCRA. The statute creates two tiers of consequences.
A willful violation, meaning the organization knew about the requirements and disregarded them, allows the affected person to recover statutory damages between $100 and $1,000 per violation even without proving any actual financial harm. Punitive damages and attorney’s fees are also available.9Office of the Law Revision Counsel. 15 U.S. Code 1681n – Civil Liability for Willful Noncompliance In a class action involving many applicants, those per-violation damages add up fast.
A negligent violation, where the organization tried to comply but fell short, limits recovery to actual damages plus attorney’s fees.10Office of the Law Revision Counsel. 15 U.S. Code 1681o – Civil Liability for Negligent Noncompliance Actual damages can include financial losses, time spent correcting inaccurate records, and emotional distress. Many FCRA violations come from sloppy paperwork rather than bad intent, and good intentions do not eliminate liability.
Using Criminal History Fairly
Beyond the FCRA’s procedural rules, the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission has issued guidance on how employers should evaluate criminal history. The EEOC recommends an individualized assessment rather than blanket exclusions, considering the nature of the offense, how much time has passed, and the nature of the job.11EEOC. Enforcement Guidance on the Consideration of Arrest and Conviction Records in Employment Decisions
This applies to all applicants but has particular weight for minors. A teenager’s background is inherently thin, so a single incident can dominate the picture in a way it would not for a 40-year-old with decades of work history. Automatically disqualifying a minor over an old juvenile adjudication, in the rare cases where that information is accessible, raises both legal risk under Title VII and basic fairness concerns. Many jurisdictions have also enacted fair-chance hiring laws that delay criminal history inquiries until after a candidate has had the opportunity to demonstrate qualifications.