Does Apple hire people with felonies?

What Apple has said

Apple's U.S. careers site shows a sentence, in the footer of every careers and job page we read, saying Apple will consider qualified applicants with criminal histories in a manner consistent with applicable law. Apple is not on the Second Chance Business Coalition member list, and we found no second-chance hiring program or published background-check or drug-test policy for applicants. Apple describes itself as a drug-free workplace, but its page is about employee conduct and does not say applicants are tested.

• Company statement

  Apple's U.S. careers overview, Apple Store careers and other U.S. careers pages carry a line saying Apple will consider qualified applicants with criminal histories in a manner consistent with applicable law, and point San Francisco applicants to that city's Fair Chance Ordinance guidelines.¹

• Statement in a job posting

  The same sentence appears in the page footer of every jobs.apple.com posting page we read: 13 Apple Store, data-center and corporate postings in Idaho (Boise), Texas (Southlake, Houston, Sugar Land and Austin), North Carolina (Maiden and Cary), Nevada (Sparks and Summerlin), Florida (Miami, Jacksonville and Melbourne) and Illinois (Chicago), plus a New York City store posting. It is part of the site's footer, not the job description; the equal opportunity paragraph in the job descriptions themselves does not mention criminal records.²

Does Apple do background checks?

Apple hasn't said publicly whether it runs background checks. Apple's U.S. careers pages and the postings we read do not describe a background check, who runs it, when it happens or what it covers. Apple's only criminal-history wording is the line about considering applicants consistent with applicable law.¹

• How long a background check takes

Does Apple drug test?

Apple hasn't published a drug testing policy. Apple says it is a drug-free workplace and prohibits employees from using, possessing or being under the influence of illegal drugs or controlled substances at work. The page does not say whether applicants are tested before hiring.³

Your rights, and how far back a check can go

• Under the federal Fair Credit Reporting Act (FCRA), an employer must get your written permission before it gets a background report about you from a background screening company.^8,9,10
• Before an employer decides not to hire, keep, or promote you because of something in a background report, it must give you a copy of the report and a document called "A Summary of Your Rights Under the Fair Credit Reporting Act."^8,9
• You have the right to dispute inaccurate or incomplete information in your background report directly with the company that made it.^8,11
• The FCRA's seven-year limit does not apply to criminal convictions, so under federal law a conviction can show up on a background report no matter how old it is.^12,13
• Under the FCRA, background and credit reports generally cannot include arrest records, civil lawsuits, or civil judgments that are more than seven years old (or older than the statute of limitations, if that is longer).^12,14

Your full background check rights

Before you apply

• You can ask a background screening company for the information it has on you, and the CFPB keeps a list of consumer reporting companies, including employment screening companies, with their contact details.^8,11,15
• According to the Clean Slate Initiative, 14 states and Washington, D.C. have passed Clean Slate laws that meet its criteria for automatically clearing eligible records: Pennsylvania, Utah, New Jersey, Connecticut, Michigan, Delaware, Virginia, California, Oklahoma, Colorado, Minnesota, New York, Illinois, and Missouri, plus D.C.¹⁶
• The Federal Bonding Program, run by the U.S. Department of Labor, lets states give employers free fidelity bonds that protect them against losses from a newly hired worker's dishonest acts, for job seekers with past justice involvement or in recovery from substance use.^17,18

See whether you can clear your record in your state