Technology and automation has empowered organizations across the country to improve their ability to access information about individuals who are seeking to work, live and volunteer in their organizations. What used to be a nearly $200 search has become a $125 search. What used to be a $25 search is now a $15 search. This increased accessibility to information and empowerment of organizations for the most part has been a great thing. Organizations have the ability – more than ever before – to get information about who they are bringing on board BEFORE they decide to give them access to their systems, facilities and people.
Knowing who you are accepting into your organization is critical for any quality risk-adverse on-boarding program. As automation has increased accessibility, however, we as a society have lost some things in the process and PeopleFacts is working on making progress with you to get them back. This Edition of NewsTRAK focuses on the critical factors of what we, as your background screening provider of choice, need to be able to identify for records to match to the person you tell us is applying at your organization. The information you provide to us makes all the difference in the information we are able to find and report back to you. Together, we can maximize the records you find and eliminate the time you have to take to sort through name match only record information.
Identity Verification – What is In a Name Matters To Your Search
It seems so obvious that when someone submits an application and puts their name, SSN and DL information on it, and even submits copies of those items, that they must be who they say they are. However, time and time again, we as an organization are amazed at the efforts people go through to hide the details about their life that matter, or to use someone else’s identification information to apply for a job or an apartment. Today we know that the question is not whether this happens, but instead, the question is what can you – the company with whom they apply – do to protect yourself when it does.
The PeopleFacts Compliance team has put together the following 10 Step process for you to follow as an organization to help you reduce your risk of relying on a false identity during your application process – regardless of the application process is for a job, an apartment, a volunteer position, a membership or other form of recognition.
Step 1: Decide to implement a comprehensive background screening program.
Step 2: Choose an accredited national professional background screening company that certifies it’s team members in FCRA compliance.
Step 3: Educate your staff on FCRA compliance and the standards for accreditation
Step 4: Ask all the right questions to get full name information – legal name, former names, nicknames, suffixes, also known as or alias names
Step 5: Require each to be filled out with names or “NONE”
Step 6: Run a search on every name provided to maximize the results and records found and returned
Step 7: Require a valid SSN or DL and then run either an SSN verification search to determine if the number is valid and ties to the name you have, or run a DL search to do the same
Step 8: Do not rely on name match only results without digging deeper with your applicant
Step 9: Do not only run an SSN and Criminal Check – The more you spend getting information, the more information you have the fewer mis-matches you will get
Step 10: Look at every item on your report o ensure that the names are matching on each record returned
1996. To learn more about PeopleFacts, visit https://peoplefacts.com/freshstart , or toll-free 800-600-8999
