In a continuing effort to improve data accuracy and further reduce false positive matches in our instant criminal database, backgroundchecks.com will require the subject's full middle name or middle initial to conduct an instant criminal database search.

Improve data accuracy & further reduce false positive matches

Including the subject's full middle name or middle initial along with the other required elements: First Name, Last Name and Date of Birth; helps to narrow the possible records in the database for review, but does not automatically mean that the record found is the exact person for whom you are searching.

Before relying on any result, you should confirm that the record really matches your subject, including by checking all information in the record and using common sense.

Additional Search Filters

In addition to our latest database search improvements, we will continue to offer the following filtering options to help you further customize your search results:

• Include Dates of Birth within 1, 2, 3 years of entered Date of Birth - This option helps when you are not sure of an exact date of birth. If you are unsure of a subject's exact date of birth, you can use this feature to increase the year range, thus increasing your results.
• Include results that do not have a Date of Birth available - This option can help broaden your search. We receive our instant criminal data from hundreds of sources. Many of those sources do not always include date of birth. By default we exclude these records in your search. While we don't recommend assuming that these are a match for your subject, they can serve as good indicators of counties or states where you might want to perform additional searches.
• Include similar names - This option will return more results because it is less strict. By default, we return only results that contain the exact name. For instance, "Jon" would not return results with the name "Jonathan", or "Jonas". However, you can choose to receive results that are similar name matches, and you would see results that matched "Jonathan" or "Jonas".

After working for a year behind the scenes with various industry leading criminal record database companies, backgroundchecks.com is proud to announce the launch of an expungement clearinghouse that ensures that more expunged records are removed from their private criminal databases. This new effort is aimed at assisting job seekers to remove records that may no longer be publicly available but which are still present in private databases.

Research shows that people have been and will continue to be refused employment because of criminal background checks that report expunged or sealed records.  With the state of the economy as it is, and with the goal of helping to create more employment opportunities, backgroundchecks.com initiated discussions with a group of criminal record database companies and asked them to join forces to set up an expungement clearinghouse to ensure that more expunged records are removed from their respective private criminal databases.

Since many courts and agencies do not proactively inform the public of expungements, a person may obtain a court order expunging or sealing a record but that order may never be received by the criminal record database companies, who are a source of criminal record information to many of the background screening companies in the US.

The Expungement Clearinghouse is designed as the central mechanism for sharing validated expungement orders by collecting the information from individuals, their attorneys, courts and other sources. Once expungements are validated, backgroundchecks.com and the other members of the Expungement Clearinghouse will receive expedited notification to remove these expunged records from their private criminal records databases. This service provides a faster and more coordinated approach to removing the records that are no longer publicly available.

At the launch of the Expungement Clearinghouse, slated for mid-spring, over 800 criminal background check companies will benefit from the information exchange provided by the Expungement Clearinghouse through its members.

“We believe that this no cost solution for removing more expunged criminal records from our industry’s databases will proactively assist people trying to rehabilitate from their criminal pasts. While the absolute number of expungements is small compared to the number of convictions, we have seen increasing use of expungements to assist these rehabilitation efforts. The Expungement Clearinghouse, an industry initiative, will make that assistance more effective.”

Craig Kessler, President of backgroundchecks.com

Next week during the annual trade show organized by the National Association of Professional Background Screeners (NAPBS), Craig Kessler, President of backgroundchecks.com is joined by other co-founders to promote Expungement Clearinghouse and welcome new participants. Any background screening agency that has a database of criminal records from which it produces reports on consumers may qualify for membership. There is no fee to join, but all members must agree to Expungement Clearinghouse’s procedures for the removal of expunged records from their databases.

About backgroundchecks.com -

backgroundchecks.com - a founding member of the National Association of Professional Background Screeners (NAPBS®) - serves thousands of customers nationwide, from small businesses to Fortune 100 companies by providing comprehensive screening services.  Headquartered in Dallas, Texas, with an Eastern Operations Center in Chapin, S.C., backgroundchecks.com is home to one of the largest online criminal conviction databases in the industry. For more information about backgroundchecks’ offerings, please visit www.backgroundchecks.com.

The situation

Offshoring is running rampant in the United States. For many companies this is a standard and acceptable business practice. Most of the companies that offshore, however, are offshoring rather innocuous jobs – customer service, coding, things that don’t allow access to a person’s PII or Personally Identifiable Information.

The background screening business doesn’t fit into this category. While many outsource, it is the nature of the business that there is very little outsourcing that could be done that doesn’t include access to PII.

In response, the California Investigative Consumer Reporting Agencies Act (ICRA), was updated. Effective January 1, 2012, any Consumer Reporting Agency (aka CRA aka background check company) that does business in California must have information regarding any offshoring of a consumer’s PII.

The bill, which is detailed here, states that this notification to the consumer should be part of the disclosure. Details regarding offshoring of PII don’t have to be divulged in the disclosure, however they must provide information for a website or telephone number where information regarding offshoring can be found.

It’s not because we don’t care. It’s also not because we don’t have any locations in California and were hoping to skirt the rule that way. No, backgroundchecks.com isn’t adding a lengthy disclosure about offshoring for the simple reason that we do not offshore our processes. The only time we send work to anyone outside the US is when we are running an international background check that requires information that originates in another country.

So if you’ve heard about this bill, you can relax and kick up your heels because there’s nothing for you to worry about.

Since the Penn State coach scandal, there has been a rush nationwide to reform and re-evaluate the way schools are conducting background checks on all of their employees. The truth is, some schools and schools districts just do not do complete background checks on those who are employed with them including teachers, administrators, support staff and of course, coaches. Those school districts that do run background checks on their employees do not run a complete national criminal background check, or only do local state checks. This is likely not enough to get a complete understanding of someone’s criminal background.

It is extremely important for parents to know that their children are safe at school and that the people who are overseeing them have been properly screened to ensure they do not have any serious criminal felonies in their backgrounds including assault, sexual crimes, or any other crimes that would disqualify a person from working with or supervising children. Limiting a search to the school’s state may not be enough to show school official and parents the full picture when it comes to employees of the school district in question.

Opponents of these re-evaluated background check policies say that it is important to note that even if a school employee goes through and passes a police criminal background check, this does not mean they have a clean record or that they are necessarily a good person. Proponents of the new policies on background checks state that this is true, but the odds of a person committing a crime against children with no criminal background are lower.

The question will always be asked if a background check could have prevented harm to a child any time one of these crimes are committed. Hiring companies like backgroundchecks.com can make it easier for school officials to run extensive background checks on their employees and take the steps needed to protect children in their schools from criminals. Products like Ongoing Criminal Monitoring can even  let school officials know if current employees are involved in new criminal activity during their tenure at the school after they pass their first pre-employment background check.

 About backgroundchecks.com

backgroundchecks.com - a founding member of the National Association of Professional Background Screeners (NAPBS®) - serves thousands of customers nationwide, from small businesses to Fortune 100 companies by providing comprehensive screening services.  Headquartered in Dallas, Texas, with an Eastern Operations Center in Chapin, S.C., backgroundchecks.com is home to one of the largest online criminal conviction databases in the industry. For more information about backgroundchecks’ offerings, please visit www.backgroundchecks.com.

Source - http://www.boston.com/yourtown/news/wellesley/2011/12/wellesley_school_committee_pro.html

In a move that has been met with some controversy, the state of Pennsylvania recently put a law into effect that now makes it mandatory for all employees of private, public and vocational schools to undergo a criminal background check. Though this is definitely something that most parents will cheer on, unfortunately it could mean the termination for some teachers, aides and administrators who may currently be employed by the schools.

The new law will be retroactive, meaning all current employees in Pennsylvania schools will be subject to a state criminal records search which will go back several years and will also provide the schools with a notification within 72 hours of any criminal behavior being done by any of their current employees. The law additionally will ban individuals who have been convicted of certain crimes, like kidnapping, stalking and assault for their lifetime from being employed by any school in Pennsylvania.

Though this law will certainly be challenged by some, it definitely brings the fact to the fore front that having felony background checks done on those who are around children on a daily basis is extremely important. In recent times, especially after the coaching scandals of late, background checks are becoming mandatory all over the country.

About backgroundchecks.com

backgroundchecks.com - a founding member of the National Association of Professional Background Screeners (NAPBS®) - serves thousands of customers nationwide, from small businesses to Fortune 100 companies by providing comprehensive screening services.  Headquartered in Dallas, Texas, with an Eastern Operations Center in Chapin, S.C., backgroundchecks.com is home to one of the largest online criminal conviction databases in the industry. For more information about backgroundchecks’ offerings, please visit www.backgroundchecks.com.

If you think the chaperones that are going along with your children’s school trips are safe, you may be sorely mistaken. According to research, most school chaperones are not subject to background checks. This information came to light after a fourth grade school field trip in Seattle.  Just last week on December 15^th, 2011, a fourth grade parent who was accompanying his child on a field trip recognized another parent who was also chaperoning. This doesn’t sound extremely unusual, until you realize that the second parent was recognized because he was a felon on “Washington’s Most Wanted” list.

Though the actual school district does require background checks for criminal history for all of their parent chaperones, this particular parent showed up to the field trip last minute and wanted to go along. The school allowed him to without a background check for criminal records and it wasn’t until the other parent recognized him that they knew he was a felon with a warrant out for his arrest, putting the children teachers and other parents in danger.

When schools implement and enforce background screening requirements for chaperone’s and use companies to swiftly and efficiently run background checks, they are taking the right steps to prevent this from happening. With a search of a multi jurisdictional criminal database results can be returned in real time like the ones offered by backgroundchecks.com this could even be done the same day as the trip. If they don’t, it is the responsibility of the school to stop unauthorized parents from attending school functions.

About backgroundchecks.com

backgroundchecks.com - a founding member of the National Association of Professional Background Screeners (NAPBS®) - serves thousands of customers nationwide, from small businesses to Fortune 100 companies by providing comprehensive screening services.  Headquartered in Dallas, Texas, with an Eastern Operations Center in Chapin, S.C., backgroundchecks.com is home to one of the largest online criminal conviction databases in the industry. For more information about backgroundchecks’ offerings, please visit www.backgroundchecks.com.

Source: http://www.seattlepi.com/local/article/School-background-checks-on-chaperones-not-always-2406295.php

It is a tough time to be looking for a job, but it can be even tougher when you have all of the experience, a perfect resume and you are still getting passed over for the jobs.  There could be a reason you are getting passed by...it could be your background. Before an employee will hire you, many will do personal background checks on your criminal record. Additionally, they may be pulling information on your driving record through a motor vehicle report.  If they see any of this information as negatively impacting the job, they may pass you by and choose another candidate.

If you have the opportunity to, you may want to run a background check on yourself so you will know what the employer is seeing. If you are not truthfully revealing all criminal information about your past when asked, no matter how insignificant it may seem to you, you will surely be looked over when a company sees information that is inconsistent with the information you have provided.  It is certainly possible that some things from your past are showing up on these background records and are making you look bad. For example, you may have a reckless driving conviction from five years ago. Though this might seem insignificant, a potential employer might judge otherwise and shy away.

It is important if you see any negative information on your personal criminal background check that you take steps to take care of them, especially if you were not aware that this information existed. It is also important that, in the mean time, you add this information to your job application when asked. It is best for an employer to know about this past information up front instead of seeing it on a background check. If they find out that way, they will certainly see you as dishonest.

Even if you think that you don’t have anything necessarily “bad” in your background, it is certainly possible that your information could be mixed up with someone else, especially if you have a common name.  If this is the case, when an employer looks for your background information, they might actually see someone else’s information that may be associated with your name.

About backgroundchecks.com -

backgroundchecks.com - a founding member of the National Association of Professional Background Screeners (NAPBS®) - serves thousands of customers nationwide, from small businesses to Fortune 100 companies by providing comprehensive screening services.  Headquartered in Dallas, Texas, with an Eastern Operations Center in Chapin, S.C., backgroundchecks.com is home to one of the largest online criminal conviction databases in the industry. For more information about backgroundchecks’ offerings, please visit www.backgroundchecks.com.

Severe storms impacting the Springfield, MA with high winds and tornadoes have caused widespread government, business and school closures.  As a result, backgroundchecks.com ability to obtain information from this area will be impeded.  We will stay abreast of the situation and keep you informed, but please take this into consideration with your background check reports, as our time service may be delayed.

The national criminal database service from backgroundchecks.com has reached 400 million records.  BackgroundChecks.com is a leading provider of background screening services. According to Craig Kessler, president of backgroundchecks.com, the size of a national criminal database is significant.

“This is a huge achievement for BackgroundChecks.com,” said Kessler.  “Size is the major differentiator among criminal database providers.  The scope of the search broadens with each additional record and source that becomes available.  This in turn allows better criminal reporting accuracy and, at 400 million records, clients – whether they are employers, tenant screeners or volunteer organizations —are recognizing the value inherent in this database.”

The growth of the national criminal database comes as no surprise.  It has been growing steadily in years past thanks to a dedicated source acquisition and data aggregation team within the company which has gathered a large number and variety of sources.  The source list includes sources from all levels: international (such as global threat lists) national, state (such as sex offender registries) and county.

Through the national criminal database, clients can perform ongoing criminal monitoring on previously-checked individuals in addition to running the initial investigation.  This alerts clients to new crimes that may be associated with subjects previously run through the national criminal database.