Background Check Consent

Last Updated: August 21, 2026 Version: 2.0 Applies to: Canada and the United States

This Background Check Consent ("Consent") explains what you agree to when you check the box authorizing a background check during guide onboarding. Please read it before you consent. If you do not agree, do not check the box — but you may not be able to complete onboarding without the background check the Organization requires.

In this Consent, "Organization" means the tour operator or business that invited, onboarded, or manages you and that requires the background check. "Tripshepherd" means Tripshepherd Inc., which provides the onboarding technology. "Certn" means Certn Holdings Inc. and its affiliates, the third-party background-screening provider that performs the check.

Sections 1 through 9 apply to everyone. Section 10 adds terms that apply if you are in Canada. Section 11 adds terms that apply if you are in the United States — including your rights under the federal Fair Credit Reporting Act. If your onboarding spans both countries, both sections apply to the checks run in each country. Section 12 is the consent itself.

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1. What you are consenting to

By checking the consent box, you authorize:

a. Tripshepherd to share the identifying information described in Section 2 with Certn for the purpose of a background check; and b. Certn to perform a background check and return the result to Tripshepherd and to the Organization that requires it.

The background check is a criminal record check in the country where you will be working. Depending on the Organization's requirements and applicable law, it may also include identity verification, driving-record (motor vehicle record) checks, and related public-record checks that Certn offers. It does not include a credit check unless you are separately told and asked to consent to one.

What the check actually covers differs by country, because the underlying record systems differ. See Section 10 (Canada) and Section 11 (United States).

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2. Information shared and processed

If you are in Canada, the following information is shared with Certn:

• your legal name; and
• your date of birth.

If you are in the United States, a criminal record search cannot be completed from name and date of birth alone, because there is no single national criminal database available for this purpose. The following is shared with Certn:

• your legal name, including any former names or aliases;
• your date of birth;
• your current and former addresses; and
• your Social Security number, used to confirm your identity and to identify the jurisdictions whose records need to be searched.

Certn may ask you directly for additional information needed to confirm your identity or complete the check (for example, to resolve a possible match). Any information you provide to Certn directly is handled under Certn's own terms and privacy policy.

Your Social Security number is used for identification and jurisdiction-matching only. It is not used for a credit check.

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3. How your information is used and who sees the result

• Certn processes your information to perform the check and to return a result.
• Tripshepherd receives the result so it can record that screening was completed and make the outcome available to the Organization through the onboarding tools.
• The Organization receives the result and decides how it affects your onboarding or assignment, subject to applicable law. The Organization — not Tripshepherd — makes that decision.

Tripshepherd does not sell your background check information and does not use it for any purpose other than facilitating the check and the Organization's onboarding decision.

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4. The decision is the Organization's

A background check result does not, by itself, mean you are approved or rejected. The Organization is responsible for how it interprets and uses the result, including any adverse decision, and must do so in accordance with applicable human rights, privacy, employment, and consumer-reporting laws. Where the law requires the Organization to notify you of an adverse decision, give you a copy of the report, or give you a chance to respond, that obligation rests with the Organization.

If you are in the United States, the specific steps the Organization must follow before and after an adverse decision are described in Section 11.5.

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5. Accuracy and your right to dispute

You confirm that the identifying information you provide is accurate. Inaccurate information can delay the check or produce an incorrect result.

If you believe the background check result is inaccurate or incomplete, you may dispute it directly with Certn, and you may also raise it with the Organization. Certn provides a process to review and correct disputed information in accordance with applicable law. You have the right to ask what information was reported about you.

If you are in the United States, Certn is a consumer reporting agency and specific dispute timelines apply — see Section 11.4.

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6. Retention

Tripshepherd retains the fact that a check was completed, its date, and its outcome status for as long as needed for the Organization's onboarding, safety, insurance, audit, dispute, and legal-compliance purposes, and as required or permitted by applicable law. Certn retains the underlying report under its own retention policy. The Organization may have its own retention obligations.

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7. Voluntary, and withdrawal

Giving this consent is voluntary. However, if you do not consent, the Organization may not be able to onboard you or offer you assignments, because the background check is one of its requirements.

You may withdraw your consent for future checks at any time by contacting the Organization or Tripshepherd at info@tripshepherd.com. Withdrawing consent does not undo a check that has already been completed, and may affect your ability to continue onboarding or to receive assignments. Withdrawal does not erase records that must be kept under applicable law.

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8. Privacy

Your information is handled in accordance with the applicable Privacy Policy, Certn's privacy policy, and the Organization's privacy practices. Certn acts as the screening provider; Tripshepherd facilitates the check on behalf of the Organization. For questions about how Tripshepherd handles your information, email info@tripshepherd.com. For questions about the Organization's handling of your information or its onboarding decision, contact the Organization.

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9. Ongoing and repeat checks

The Organization may require a new check periodically, or when required by its insurer or by law. Each new check relies on this Consent unless the Organization or applicable law requires a fresh authorization. If you are in the United States and the Organization intends to obtain reports on an ongoing basis throughout your engagement, that intention is stated in the separate FCRA disclosure described in Section 11.2 — and you may revoke it as described in Section 7.

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10. Additional terms — Canada

What the check covers. In Canada the check is a Canadian criminal record check, run against national police record systems on the basis of your name and date of birth. A name-and-date-of-birth check can produce a possible match that requires fingerprint verification to confirm or rule out; if that happens, Certn or the Organization will tell you what is needed.

Your consent under Canadian privacy law. Your consent is collected and your information handled in accordance with the Personal Information Protection and Electronic Documents Act (PIPEDA) and any substantially similar provincial privacy legislation that applies to you — including Quebec's Act respecting the protection of personal information in the private sector, and British Columbia's and Alberta's Personal Information Protection Acts.

Human rights limits. Provincial and territorial human rights legislation limits how a criminal record may be used in employment decisions. In several jurisdictions, discriminating on the basis of a pardoned or record-suspended conviction, or a conviction unrelated to the work, is prohibited. Those limits bind the Organization.

Access and correction. You have the right to request access to the personal information held about you and to request correction of inaccurate information, subject to the exceptions in applicable privacy law. Requests about the report itself go to Certn; requests about what Tripshepherd holds go to info@tripshepherd.com.

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11. Additional terms — United States

These terms apply if you live or will be working in the United States. They exist because a background check obtained for work purposes in the United States is regulated by the federal Fair Credit Reporting Act (FCRA), 15 U.S.C. § 1681 et seq., and by a range of state and local laws.

11.1 The check is a "consumer report"

Under the FCRA:

• the background check is a consumer report;
• Certn is a consumer reporting agency ("CRA") — the party that compiles and furnishes the report; and
• the Organization is the user of the report — the party that requests it and acts on it.

Certn, not Tripshepherd, is the consumer reporting agency. Tripshepherd facilitates the request and delivers the outcome to the Organization.

11.2 The separate disclosure and authorization

The FCRA requires that the disclosure telling you a consumer report may be obtained for employment purposes be given to you in a standalone document — a document that consists solely of that disclosure — together with your written authorization. This page is a reference copy explaining the whole process; it is not that standalone document.

You will therefore be given a separate FCRA disclosure and authorization at the point where you consent, along with a copy of "A Summary of Your Rights Under the Fair Credit Reporting Act" prepared by the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau. Read those documents — they, and not this page, are the operative disclosure and authorization for a United States check. If you were not given them, do not consent; contact the Organization or info@tripshepherd.com.

If the check will include information gathered from personal interviews — an investigative consumer report — you are entitled to additional notice, and to request disclosure of the nature and scope of the investigation.

11.3 What a United States check covers

There is no single national criminal database available to employers in the United States. A United States check is therefore assembled from several sources, which may include:

• a Social Security number trace, used to build an address history and identify which jurisdictions to search;
• county, state, and federal criminal court record searches in those jurisdictions;
• multi-jurisdictional criminal database searches, with confirmation at the source court;
• national and state sex offender registry searches; and
• a motor vehicle record (driving record) check, where driving is part of the role.

The scope is set by the Organization. Because coverage is built jurisdiction by jurisdiction, a United States check commonly takes longer than a Canadian one, and turnaround depends on the responsiveness of the individual courts searched.

11.4 Your rights under the FCRA

You have the right to:

• be told if information in your file has been used against you — see Section 11.5;
• know what is in your file, and to request a copy of your report from Certn. The disclosure is free if you request it within 60 days of being told that adverse action was taken against you because of it;
• dispute incomplete or inaccurate information with Certn. Certn must reinvestigate, generally within 30 days (extendable to 45 days if you provide additional information during the initial 30-day period), and must correct or delete information it cannot verify;
• have inaccurate, incomplete, or unverifiable information corrected or deleted;
• have outdated negative information excluded. Most adverse items may not be reported after seven years, and bankruptcies after ten. Records of arrest that did not lead to conviction are subject to the seven-year limit. Under federal law there is no time limit on reporting criminal convictions, but several states — including California, Massachusetts, Maryland, Montana, New Hampshire, New Mexico, New York, and Washington — do impose one;
• limit who can access your report. A CRA may provide it only to someone with a permissible purpose, such as consideration for employment or engagement;
• withhold consent. No employment-purpose report may be given to an employer or prospective engager without your written authorization; and
• seek damages from a CRA or a user of a report that violates the FCRA.

Some of these rights carry additional protections under state law. The CFPB Summary of Rights provided with your disclosure sets them out in full.

11.5 If the Organization decides not to move forward (adverse action)

If the Organization intends to take an adverse action — declining to onboard you, or ending or limiting your assignments — based in whole or in part on the report, the FCRA requires a two-step process:

1. Before acting, the Organization must give you a pre-adverse action notice that includes a copy of the report it relied on and a copy of the CFPB Summary of Rights. You must be allowed a reasonable period — commonly five business days — to review the report and tell the Organization if something in it is wrong or incomplete.
2. After acting, the Organization must give you an adverse action notice stating: that the action was taken; the name, address, and telephone number of Certn; that Certn did not make the decision and cannot explain why it was made; your right to obtain a free copy of the report from Certn within 60 days; and your right to dispute the accuracy or completeness of the information with Certn.

This obligation is the Organization's, not Tripshepherd's. If you believe the process was not followed, contact the Organization. You may also contact the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau at consumerfinance.gov or your state attorney general.

11.6 State and local rights

State and local law may give you more protection than the FCRA, and may restrict what the Organization is allowed to consider. Depending on where you live and work:

• Fair-chance and "ban-the-box" laws in many states, counties, and cities restrict when criminal history may be requested — often not until after a conditional offer — and require an individualized assessment of the offence against the duties of the role before any adverse decision.
• California. The Investigative Consumer Reporting Agencies Act (Cal. Civ. Code § 1786 et seq.) requires its own disclosure, identifying the source of the report and your right to a free copy, with a box you may check to receive one. California also bars reporting non-conviction arrest information and limits conviction reporting to seven years, and the Fair Chance Act governs how criminal history may be used.
• New York. Article 23-A of the Correction Law and § 296(16) of the Human Rights Law limit the use of criminal records and require a multi-factor assessment. In New York City, the Fair Chance Act requires a conditional offer before any criminal history inquiry, and a written Fair Chance analysis before any adverse decision.
• Right to a copy of your report. California, Minnesota, Oklahoma, and Washington, among others, give you a statutory right to receive a copy of the report, on request or automatically.
• Other states impose their own disclosure formats, lookback limits, and restrictions on the use of sealed, expunged, or juvenile records.

Where state or local law gives you a greater right than this Consent describes, that law governs. Compliance with these requirements is the Organization's responsibility.

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12. Your consent

By checking the consent box, you confirm that:

• you have read and understood this Consent;
• if you are in the United States, you have also been given, and have read, the separate FCRA disclosure and the CFPB Summary of Rights described in Section 11.2;
• you are at least 18 years old;
• the identifying information you provide is true and accurate; and
• you authorize Tripshepherd to share that information with Certn, and authorize Certn to perform a background check and return the result to Tripshepherd and the Organization, as described above.

"I consent to a background check by Certn and authorize Tripshepherd to share my identifying information for this purpose."

This page explains the background check process and your rights. It is not legal advice. Nothing here limits a right you have under the FCRA or under the law of your province, state, or locality.