Q. What records should employers maintain in a driver qualification file to meet the requirements of this section § 382.701(e)?

A. As of January 6, 2020, employers are required to conduct both electronic queries in the Clearinghouse and traditional manual inquiries with previous employers to meet the three-year timeframe required by § 391.23. This will be required until January 6, 2023, at which point a query of the Clearinghouse will satisfy this requirement.

The Clearinghouse retains a record of every query an employer conducts. This includes any queries conducted by a designated consortium/third-party administrator (C/TPA) on their behalf. Employers may choose to maintain separate copies in addition to these Clearinghouse records.

A history of an employer’s full and limited queries, including those conducted by a designated C/TPA, is maintained in the Clearinghouse. This includes records of the driver’s response to consent requests for any full queries conducted or initiated.

Employers must retain records of drivers’ limited consent for 3 years. This does not have to be retained in the driver qualification file, but the employer must be able to provide evidence upon request.