Online hiring risk: What traditional checks miss, and why it matters now

Harassment, intolerance, and bad conduct would end a career if they happened in the office. But none of them leave a trace on a CV or a DBS certificate. These days that record exists elsewhere, such as social media, news archives, public forums, and online communities. 

Ben puts it plainly: 

We bring the dimension of who people are online into the talent screening process.

That dimension is growing. According to Deloitte’s 2025 Gen Z and Millennial Survey, 74% of the global workforce will be Gen Z or Millennials by 2030. The behaviours that have always mattered to employers are now, for a much larger portion of the workforce, visible and finable online. 

As Ben explains: 

Social media is becoming the new workplace water cooler. The harassing comment that might have happened around the water cooler, in one ear and out the other, that's now set in stone.

The question isn't whether this information is out there. It's whether you have a consistent, compliant process for looking at it. 

The Financial Conduct Authority (FCA) non-financial misconduct rules came into force on 1 September 2026. For firms in or connected to financial services, new compliance obligations are live, covering acceptable and unacceptable workplace behaviour, including the kind that shows up online. 

Ben is direct about what this means in practice: 

If you are an FCA-regulated firm, you're now subject to a whole new set of rules and compliance frameworks that you maybe weren't prior to the enforcement deadline on 1 September.

But the direction of travel is broader than financial services. The Keeping Children Safe in Education statutory guidance, the Worker Protection Act, ICO guidance, and the EU AI Act are all converging around the same principle: online conduct is workplace-relevant conduct. Regulators are following the shift in how people work and where they spend their time. 

The 1 September FCA deadline won't be the last regulatory shift in this direction. 

The concern most organisations raise is compliance. Looking at someone's online presence feels like it could create legal exposure: protected characteristics, data privacy, consistency of process. It's a legitimate concern, and it's exactly why doing this manually isn't the answer. 

Ben explains the risk: 

If you try to do this yourself, you will expose yourself to legal risks. You might see that someone went to a religious school, that they're following content about being pregnant. Personal characteristics you're really not supposed to see as part of the hiring process.

The solution is a structured, third-party process that screens for the specific behaviours you define (harassment, intolerance, safeguarding red flags) while filtering out protected characteristics entirely. The result is a consistent, auditable check that sits alongside existing screening, not in place of it. 

Organisations define the specific behaviours they want to screen for. The platform reads text, image, and video from a candidate's publicly available online content (at over 99% accuracy) according to Ben Mones, Founder and CEO of Fama, and surfaces only the behaviours that match the governance framework you've set. 

Protected characteristics never reach the reviewer. The candidate's CV is the only input required. Candidates receive a notification explaining what will be screened and must give their consent before any screening takes place, keeping you compliant with GDPR and data subject rights obligations.  A report is returned within 24 hours, integrated directly into the Access Screening portal. 

Ben is clear on one prerequisite: 

I cannot stress enough: this only works if your governance framework is in place. You have to have the governance strategy, the screening policy, the adjudication process. If you don't have one, don't worry. That's something Access can create with you.

Eight categories of misconduct are covered as standard, with the option to add custom keywords and plain-language policy rules on top. You decide what you screen for. You can turn behaviours on or off depending on what's relevant to your organisation. 

1. Map your online risk exposure. Which roles carry the most reputational or safeguarding risk if something is missed? 
2. Check your FCA obligations. If you're in or connected to financial services, the rules came into force on 1 September. Act now. 
3. Review your governance framework. Do you have a screening policy that covers online conduct? 
4. Understand the compliance case for third-party screening. Doing this manually creates legal exposure; a structured process removes it. 
5. Talk to your Access Screening team. Online screening sits alongside your existing checks, not in place of them.