If an employer, a gig platform, or a landlord turned you down after a Certn background check, the report behind that decision is a consumer report under the Fair Credit Reporting Act. Certn is a Canadian company that screens for U.S. employers and property managers through a U.S. subsidiary, and it publishes less about how to dispute a report than most American screeners do. That does not reduce your rights. You are entitled to see the report, to dispute it free of charge, and to be compensated when an error costs you a job or a home.
What Certn is
Certn Holdings Inc. is headquartered in Victoria, British Columbia, was founded in 2016, and operates in the United States through Certn (USA) Inc., according to its privacy policy and press coverage of its financing rounds; it markets U.S. criminal checks under the Certn Lime name and absorbed the U.K. screener Credence in 2024. Its U.S. product set covers Social Security number tracing, national criminal database and sex-offender searches, county and federal court searches, global sanctions and watch lists, identity verification, employment and education verification, credit checks, driving records, social-media screening, and continuous monitoring, sold to construction, financial services, gig, healthcare, hospitality, staffing, and property-management clients. Its applicant terms of use state that for U.S. residents it is a consumer reporting agency under the FCRA. The company does not appear on the Professional Background Screening Association’s list of accredited firms. When it assembles those records and sells them to a U.S. employer or landlord, it carries every duty the FCRA imposes.
Where these reports go wrong
A screener that runs national-database searches at volume fails in the ways databases fail. A match on name and date of birth can attach a stranger’s conviction to your file — the same failure that produces a mixed credit file; a charge that was dismissed can be reported as pending or as a conviction; an expunged record can surface from a database the court never updated; and a non-conviction older than seven years can appear even though the FCRA bars it. The company’s tenant-screening practices are also under a joint investigation by Canada’s federal and provincial privacy regulators, opened in 2024, that asks among other things whether the information it reports is accurate and current; whatever that investigation concludes, the accuracy standard that governs a U.S. report is the FCRA’s.
What an employer or landlord owes you before and after acting on a Certn report
The rules differ depending on who ordered the report. An employer must act before the decision: before taking adverse action based in whole or in part on a background report, it has to give you a copy of the report and a written description of your rights under the Fair Credit Reporting Act (15 U.S.C. § 1681b(b)(3)(A)), the two documents the Federal Trade Commission’s guidance to employers also describes. That is the moment to read the Certn report line by line and dispute anything wrong.
A landlord has no duty to show you the report first, but once it denies you, charges a higher deposit, or takes other adverse action because of the report, it must tell you. The notice has to give the name, address and telephone number of the company that supplied the report, a statement that the company did not make the decision, and notice of your right to a free copy of the report if you ask within 60 days and to dispute anything in it (15 U.S.C. § 1681m(a)). The FTC’s guidance to landlords lists the same contents. An employer that goes ahead after the pre-adverse action letter owes you that same post-decision notice.
Records that should not be on a Certn report at all
Some entries are errors no matter how accurately a database copied them. The Act bars a consumer reporting agency from reporting civil suits, civil judgments and records of arrest that antedate the report by more than seven years from the date of entry, or until the governing statute of limitations has expired if that is longer, and any other adverse item older than seven years — records of convictions excepted (15 U.S.C. § 1681c(a)(2), (a)(5)). For a rental application those limits always apply. For a job, they do not apply if the position pays, or may reasonably be expected to pay, $75,000 a year or more (§ 1681c(b)(3)). A national-database hit on an arrest that is more than seven years old and never became a conviction should not reach a landlord at all.
How to get your report and dispute it
Certn does not publish a dedicated U.S. dispute page, mailing address, or turnaround. According to its help center, if you believe any part of your report is inaccurate you should write to support@certn.co, and its applicant terms say disputes can also be raised inside the app; the privacy policy lists a toll-free line, 1-844-987-0690. Send the dispute by email so that it is dated and kept, identify the exact item, attach the court disposition or records that prove your point, and ask for written confirmation that a reinvestigation has been opened. The FCRA does not depend on the company publishing a deadline: it has 30 days to reinvestigate and must delete what it cannot verify. An employer that ordered the report must give you a copy before acting on it; a landlord must name the company after a denial, and the copy is then free if you ask within 60 days. You can also ask the company for your file directly. Our guide to disputing a background check covers what the letter should say.
When it becomes a legal claim
Consumer reporting agencies must follow reasonable procedures to assure maximum possible accuracy, reinvestigate disputes, and delete what they cannot verify, and a foreign parent does not change where a U.S. subsidiary can be sued. A stranger’s record on your report, a dismissed charge reported as a loss, or a dispute that goes unanswered is the exact failure the FCRA makes compensable: actual damages for the job or housing you lost, statutory and punitive damages where the violation is willful, and attorney’s fees, which is why we handle these cases on contingency. Certn sits alongside Checkr and Vetty among the newer screeners in our background check company directory, and its tenant reports fall under our tenant screening report errors practice; our background check error lawyer practice covers the employment side, including when you can sue a background check company.
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Published by The Kim Law Firm, LLC — about attorney Richard Kim. Last updated October 2026.