Today, companies are learning threats to our nation and critical infrastructure are coming from within our borders. Often we hear about the “Lone Wolf” and discuss how an average appearance person can blend into our society and ultimately adds the capability to become the next Timothy McVeigh.
Companies will rightfully realize the need to conduct background checks on key employees in an attempt to make the company more secure. While this process is appropriate, it is critical you ask detailed questions about the background services you are paying for. The most egregious act an investigative company can tell you is there is a national criminal check that can be performed and the subsequent bill that follows.
Unless law enforcement is conducting the check, no private agency has access to the national database, nor does a public version exist. Individual state checks are available to the civilian investigator, however there are issues associated with this as well, most of which are not good. Being an informed consumer will go a long way to make your limited security dollar go further in actually keeping you secure.
It is appalling to me that the credibility and reliability you depend on for your security turns out to be a con game based on what is know as “smoke and mirrors”. As terrorism events occur with greater frequency, it is important not to rush too quickly to act. This should be a lesson we should have learned over the years. Post event spending is not always thought out fully, especially when these events bring out the vaporware salesmen in droves. A little thought and insight will prevent you from being a victim twice as a result of the same event.
One Comment
This article is completely false. It is true that there is not a government nationwide database that background screening companies have access to. Instead background investigative companies create their own nationwide databases. Very real databases that (1) are not equal, some are far larger and more useful than others (2) no company should claim that it is a government database, which I have not seen any companies claiming; however, the sources that make up these databases are government sources (3) the largest ones are very valuable to a corporate screening program while the smaller ones are a waste of corporate screening funds.
Instead this article should warn that if you are going to use one of these nationwide databases from a background investigative company that you should compare them. See which one is more valuable, and if there is a vast price difference it usually because they are not equal searches because since they are all proprietary databases they obviously are not all the same product. Second, it is not recommended to only use a national criminal database. A company should additionally run physical county or state criminal searches (where available). Lastly, if these national criminal databases don’t exist then they would not be able to ever provide criminal records and companies would cease using them. These proprietary national criminal databases can actually find criminal records on individuals searched, and when they do – the background investigative company has to go to the source of the record and validate it (as required by the FCRA).