Conducting Criminal Record Checks in Colorado

Employers in Colorado are permitted or required to conduct criminal record checks in accordance with these rules.

Employers may not require an applicant to disclose any information contained in sealed arrest or criminal records.

Colorado has laws pertaining to criminal background checks for employment for:

Special rules apply to the employment of persons convicted of offenses involving moral turpitude.

Nursing care facilities or persons seeking employment at a nursing care facility are authorized to obtain the required criminal background check on the applicant through the state bureau of investigation or through a state-authorized private enterprise that provides criminal background checks. In either case, a criminal background check must be conducted not more than 90 days prior to an applicant's employment.

Criminal history records checks are required for passenger transport drivers and taxicab drivers.

Information regarding the criminal history of an employee or former employee may not be introduced as evidence in a civil action against an employer or the employer's employees or agents that is based on the employee or former employee's conduct under certain circumstances, such as that the record is of an arrest or charge that did not result in a criminal conviction.

However, this law does not supersede any statutory requirement to conduct a criminal history background check or consider criminal history records in hiring for particular types of employment.

Fingerprint-based criminal history records checks conducted by child care facilities must include a fingerprint-based criminal history records check utilizing the records of the Colorado Bureau of Investigation, and as of August 10, 2011, for any new owner, new applicant, newly hired employee, new licensee or individual who begins residing in the licensed facility on or after August 11, 2011, the Federal Bureau of Investigation.


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