Background/Pre-Employment Searches
The business of providing pre-employment and background checks to businesses and the public alike is growing by leaps and bounds. Aside from cost, the most important aspect of a background/pre-employment check is accuracy and completeness. Almost anyone can apply to online systems that claim to supply full background and criminal history reports. However, there are problems with many of these. One of the weightiest is their limited access to complete records that are updated often.
Background/Pre-Employment Search Clients
If you are going to run background/pre-employment searches, it's helpful to know who purchases them.
An insurance company may purchase background information on someone to be sure she isn't a serial complainant and that she isn't double-dipping or receiving compensation from other departments.
Attorneys purchase background checks on behalf of their clients, but they may also purchase background checks on their own clients, especially those involved in divorce, personal injury, lawsuit, child custody, and criminal or civil cases.
Business owners purchase pre-employment checks before hiring employees.
Individuals often want to check backgrounds for personal reasons, most commonly for information about those they're dating, their fiancés, birth parents, siblings, or children, or for locating an old friend or high school sweetheart.
Sometimes information checks are ordered to search for new information and to verify information already in the client's possession, such as that provided on job applications.
Consent
Of course, employers and investigators who perform background checks must notify the applicant of their intent to run the check and must obtain a signed consent to do so as recommended by the Fair Credit Reporting Act (FCRA). In fact, higher-level information services require that you state the reason for running at least some parts of the background. You can run subject info such as alias, social security number verifier, addresses and phone numbers, court and business records, licenses other than driver's license, and surrounding neighborhood facilities, all without stating your purpose. The moment you request driver's license information — license, licensed drivers at residence, and vehicles registered at address — you must name your reason.
When you inquire into criminal records, sex offender records, warrants, arrests (provided by some service providers, but not all), you'll be asked to indicate your purpose from this list:
To protect against or prevent actual or potential fraud, unauthorized transactions, claims or other liability
For required institutional risk control or resolving consuming disputes or inquiries
Due to holding a legal beneficial interest relating to the subject
To effect, administer, or enforce a transaction to underwrite insurance at the consumer's request, for reinsurance purposes, or for (relating to consumer's insurance) reporting, investigating, fraud prevention, premium payment processing, benefit administration, or research projects
A consent, or release form, is standard in most companies, but if you perform searches for employers you must obtain a copy of the consent as well. Also, the consent must be worded to include permission for you to perform the search. If it doesn't include you by name, it should indicate permission for an agent of the company to do the background check.
