New: Identity Verification and Civil Court Searches for Employers

Employers can now add two things to a background check: identity verification for your applicants, and civil court searches. Both are add-ons. You choose them per order, and neither changes what is in the Basic, Complete or Professional packages.

Identity verification

A background check tells you what records are tied to the name and details your applicant gives you. Identity verification is meant to answer an earlier question: is the person applying the person they say they are?

When you add it, identity verification becomes the first step in your applicant's workflow. Your applicant verifies their identity, then continues to the background check form. Our SSN trace does not do this. It looks at a Social Security number and the names and addresses tied to it, not at the person using it.

A mismatch stops or flags the order. It does not reject your applicant, and BackgroundChecks.com does not make hiring decisions.

Identity verification is for employers ordering checks on applicants. It is not available when you run a check on yourself.

Consider adding it when identity is a real risk for the role: remote hires you will not meet in person before a start date, positions with access to money, customer data or client property, or any role where confirming identity before the background check matters to you.

Our Help Center walks through how identity verification works for applicants, step by step.

Civil court searches

Criminal searches do not show civil cases. A civil search looks for civil court cases, such as lawsuits and civil judgments, where your applicant is named as a party. You can order three searches:

• County Upper Civil Court Records: general jurisdiction courts, which hear larger claims and other civil disputes.

• County Lower Civil Court Records: limited jurisdiction courts, such as small claims, justice or magistrate courts, which hear small claims and other minor disputes.

• Federal Civil Court Records: civil cases in the 94 U.S. federal district courts. Federal Civil does not include bankruptcy cases.

You can order them in any combination. Upper and lower court are separate options because each state splits its courts differently, and some states handle both levels in one court.

Scope. Our civil searches report civil records from the last 7 years only. Federal Civil applies the same reporting standards we use for our Federal Criminal Search, apart from that 7-year limit.

Where we search. The counties searched come from the jurisdictions in your applicant's 7-year address history, based on the address trace we conduct. If a county civil search is not available in one of those counties, we show it as not available at checkout and on the report, and you are not charged for it.

Court fees. Some county and state courts charge a fee to search civil records. We pass those fees through at cost and list them by state and jurisdiction in the Help Center. Federal Civil has no surcharge. Because the counties come from the address trace, which runs after you order, county fees can't be calculated in advance. The base price for each search is shown at checkout.

When to add one. Employers often add a civil search for roles where a history of contract disputes or other civil litigation may relate to the job, such as positions that handle money, sign contracts, or manage property or client assets. You decide whether a civil search fits the position and how you use the results under federal, state and local law.

The full details, including the court fee list, are in our Help Center article on civil searches.

How to order

1. On Order Report for New Applicants, select a package.

2. Under Additional Screening Checks, check Civil Court Reports, then check any combination of County Upper Civil Court Records, County Lower Civil Court Records and Federal Civil Court Records.

3. To verify your applicant's identity, check the Identity Verification add-on under Additional Screening Checks.

4. Click Continue.

As with any background check, before you order, your applicant must receive a clear and conspicuous written disclosure, in a document by itself, that a background check may be obtained for employment purposes, and must give you written authorization.

Getting started

Hundreds of thousands of companies use BackgroundChecks.com to screen applicants. Both add-ons work inside the same order flow you use today, and the base price for each is shown at checkout. For an independent look at the platform, see the TechRadar review of BackgroundChecks.com.

This is general information, not legal advice. Talk to your counsel about which searches fit your roles and how to use the results.