How Reliable Are Online Background Checks?

When something seems too good to be true, it usually is. Are online background checks all they’re cracked up to be? Are they really instant and national?

SURPRISING TRUTH #1: It is perfectly legal to run a background check on anyone at any time. Now I know I’ve lost some of you who now think I’m crazy because you know there are all kinds of forms you have to sign with all kinds of legal warnings with criminal penalties and whatnot, but I’ll say it again. “ANYONE CAN DO A BACKGROUND CHECK ON ANYONE, ANYTIME THEY LIKE.” Because I want you to read this entire article, I won’t explain those statements until later in the article.

SURPRISING TRUTH #2: There is no instant national database of all criminal records that you can access. By now you’re probably sure I’m crazy. “Why did they get the bad guy’s record last night at Law & Order…” There, you’re talking about the NCIC, the National Center for Criminal Information or otherwise known as the FBI files. While the FBI keeps the best and most accurate records, unfortunately, they cannot obtain them, unless, of course, you are a federally insured bank, a defense department contractor, a nuclear power plant, a branch of the government itself or some other. entity. A surprising number of smart people think that there are giant government databases with information on everyone, including their criminal records, employment history, credit files, and even what books they check out from the library and what videos they rent. If that were true, why does it take the government itself four months and $2400 to run its own background checks? You do not believe me? Email me and I’ll send you the link to the Office of Personnel Management website showing the rate and schedule.

AMAZING TRUTH #3: There is a big, big difference between everywhere and anywhere. The companies that sell information from databases advertise that they are looking everywhere, or at least that’s what they want you to believe. The use of the word Nationwide is designed to make you think they check everywhere. The question then becomes: “If you don’t check everywhere, what do you check?” The answer is that we check anywhere a person has lived or worked. Is it much better to check ANYWHERE and get actual records than to check EVERYWHERE and get inaccurate database records?

So if there is no instant national database, what are these companies selling? First let me tell you what these databases are for and then I’ll tell you why they are dangerous. In some states in the US, your REAL criminal records are available in some sort of publicly accessible form. It may be on the Internet and may require a subscription or an acknowledgment of permissible purpose for use, but it is available. Texas is a good example of this. For a small fee, you can go online and access the REAL criminal records for the state of Texas. Florida, Minnesota, and Virginia are other examples of where you can get what I call “REAL” records through these database services. The problem is that these database companies don’t tell the consumer (you) that in most cases and in most areas of the country you get nothing or marginal information at best.

This is why. The companies that collect and sell these database records and the hundreds of companies that resell this information do not emphasize the weakness of their systems. That’s why they emphasize the words “instant” and “national level” in their promotions. Everyone wants cheap and instant instead of slow and expensive, right? Can you imagine a website advertising “Slow and Expensive Limited Area Background Checks”? In fact, to get really accurate records in most parts of the country, an in-person search is still required at every county courthouse.

These companies get records where they can get them for free; usually from a state’s Department of Corrections, which means it only gets information about a person if they have been convicted of a felony and sentenced to prison. When most people think of a criminal background check, they think of all the arrests and convictions; both minor and serious crimes and the judicial disposition, guilty or not guilty and the sentence. As you can see, if you only get felony convictions, you only get a small piece of the pie. For example; a person can be arrested a couple of times for having drug paraphernalia or a small amount of drugs in their possession. If the records you obtain only include felony convictions, you will not have any records of that person’s drug abuse.

The other problem with these Instant Nationwide background checks is that in many areas of the country they get nothing at all because state or county superior courts or district courts don’t provide them with free records. Here’s another example: Suppose you’re a parent in San Francisco, Las Vegas, Salt Lake City, Boston, Atlanta, or New Orleans (just to name a few) and you want to run a criminal background check. You go online and type “background check” into Yahoo or Google and immediately see ads for “Instant Nationwide” background checks. You choose one of the websites that offer instant registrations, pay $19.95 or $49.95, and enter the information of the person you want to review. Instantly, the website tells you that no record was found based on the information you have provided. You feel great! Go ahead and tell the babysitter that she can start tomorrow because she passed the background check. Here comes the big kick to her stomach. . . What the website didn’t tell you is that its database records don’t search in any of those areas. You just paid $19.95 or $49.95 and got NOTHING, ZERO, ZIP, NOTHING. Disclosure: Actually, the procedural award is not 100% true. In Nevada and Louisiana, the databases look up inmates currently incarcerated in their respective prison systems. So if your potential babysitter is in prison right now, she’ll tell you that he/she is in prison, but I’m guessing she’ll already know.

Now to explain Shocking Truth #1: I’ll say it again: Anyone can search anyone, at any time. If you want, you can do a criminal or civil background check (or lack thereof) on your daughter’s boyfriend (I do this regularly), your crazy next-door neighbor, your business partner, your doctor, your ex-husband, your mayor or even your priest. In fact, you don’t even have to be a US citizen to get these records. You can walk into the clerk’s office of the Superior Court (District Court in some states), in the jurisdiction where that person lives/did, walk up to the counter, fill out a piece of paper, give it to the clerk, and wait for the results. . Remember that you will only get records from that county, meaning if a person lives in multiple counties, you will need to check each county. The subject of your search might be an ax murderer from the next county, but the clerk of court in your county would have no record of it.

Well, now that you have the information, what do you do with it? This is the area in which the law is involved; What do you do with the information? If you use this information to discriminate against a person, deny them employment, housing or entrance to a school, etc. then you are breaking the law and exposing yourself to great liability and possible lawsuits. This is what all consent forms with warnings are about. It is not obtaining the information that concerns the laws but its use.

In short, read the fine print and ask questions or go to court and do it yourself.