Background Screening
What’s In Your Record?
By Daniel Muniz

Out of fear of potential lawsuits, an increasing number of employers are beginning to utilize background checks on all applicants. With the advent of the Internet and the plethora of new databases, such searches are not only becoming commonplace, but they are now fairly easy to acquire and even cheap to purchase. But just how accurate are such background checks in providing correct and complete information about an individual’s criminal history?

As with any type of database, it is entirely contingent on the concept of “garbage in, garbage out.” Unfortunately, this makes such profiles rather troublesome.

For instance, probably the most widely recognized personal record is your credit report which is maintained by the credit bureaus. The credit bureaus or CRAs (Credit Reporting Agencies) are only repositories of information. They simply gather credit information provided to them from their “paid” subscribers. They also have contracts with third-parties that gather public records from county courthouses and other public depositories who in turn place their findings in the credit bureau databases. All this data then becomes a file for your credit report.

Suppose that there is an inaccuracy with your credit report?

For some people, it takes only one dispute to correct an entry while it may take years for other people to accomplish the exact same thing. The credit bureaus do not make money by ensuring that your credit report is complete and factual. That is a cost. Instead, they make money by selling your credit report to anyone who has “permissible purpose” to view it. That is revenue.

Although the credit bureaus are bound by the FCRA (Fair Credit Reporting Act), it is still a tough job to keep your credit profile as accurate as possible especially since the credit bureaus lose money the more time they devote to investigating your disputes. But at the very least, the federal laws already in place prevent the credit bureaus from running roughshod over your credit information.

Unfortunately, that is not the case with background screeners.

There are no federal laws that directly govern how criminal checks are performed because these background screeners do not maintain any databases of individuals. The screeners simply take a one-time snapshot of what they uncover after roving through the databases that they have access to. That snapshot then becomes the report of a background check.

As a result, the reports that the background screeners produce does not fall under the FCRA although the databases that maintain such personal information do.

In addition, some of the searches done by the background screeners are extensive while others aren’t. And it really depends on how much effort that a screener wants to exert. And that amount of effort is also entirely contingent on how much someone is willing to pay for such a search.

And the background screeners themselves are about as different as the searches that they perform. Some screeners operate as huge diversified corporations while others may simply be a one-man smoke-filled office.

Some of the databases that are checked are often updated and well maintained while others are sloppily put together. And some databases are just downright awful.

For instance, unlike other states, Texas recycles its driver’s license numbers instead of retiring them.

As a result, someone who thinks that he or she just received a new Texas driver’s license number may actually have a number belonging to a convicted felon or a financial deadbeat or both. And remember, it is “garbage in, garbage out” so if that number is cross-referenced with other databases, a background check could result in numerous bogus details that do not even belong to the person being checked.

And it is not only driver’s license numbers that this can happen to. There are plenty of different ways that other people’s personal information could be mixed in with yours. Unfortunately, such scenarios end up causing people to be denied employment or failing a simple criminal check.

Not only can the results be totally wrong but they can also be completely absurd. Like ending up with the wrong gender, race, or having a record of delinquent child support payments even if you don’t have any kids.

But the cruelest injustice is what to do with such mistaken information.

Suppose that a potential employer says that you have six felony convictions? How do you “disprove” that especially if a database says that you are a habitual criminal?

Tragically, the same thing can happen when employers want to weed out the dregs of society when making hiring decisions but then a criminal background check comes up clean. That happens quite often and numerous lawsuits make employers even more determined to run vastly more extensive checks on those they interview.

To illustrate this problem, there are 3,142 counties. How can a background check truly examine all the criminal records and pending cases for every county to ensure complete accuracy?

And to make matters worse, some public information is not very easy to get a hold of and some places take a very long time to update.

Incidentally, a background screener can do everything right and still come up with an incomplete profile of an individual. And the result can be terribly tragic, especially by the hardened criminals who want to conceal their past.

Undoubtedly, background checks are here to stay particularly when it comes to employment. And if they are to become actually useful, then such reports have to be more accurate than they currently are. As much as I hate government intervention, I reluctantly admit that there ought to be some sort of national standards developed, much like the FCRA that governs credit bureaus, so that such public information can be more accurately obtained and disseminated.

And in this instance, I really don’t have too much of a problem with government intervention, because after all, these are public records that we are talking about. And the thing about public records, is that, well, it’s public. Anybody can view any public unsealed record. And when it comes to criminals, perhaps that is not too bad of a thing.

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