Background Reports

Some people will see background checks as an invasion of there privacy, with companies seeking credit reports when you apply for a loan, potential employers doing criminal record checks and even potential customers carrying out legal record checks to see if you are indeed a legitimate business.

Now I can understand anyone being concerned at the fact that anyone with an internet connection and an average amount of intelligence can conduct the kind of searches mentioned above but I am pretty sure if you were the one spending money or indeed lending money (as in the case of a loan company) that you would like to know you are dealing with someone that is above board and that they are in fact who they say they are. As an employer would you want to be employing someone that has a long history of theft or fraud or in the case of a company offering services to the general public, someone with a history of anti social behaviour or violence?

In this day and age of growing identity theft and scams it makes a lot of sense to check people and companies out before either trusting them with positions of authority or large sums of money. How many times do you read the newspapers and read of people being swindled out of thousands of dollars and in some cases there entire life savings? How many times do you read of children being attacked or indeed even worse by babysitters or carers?

Another vulnerable but often neglected group are elderly people that for one reason or another are living out there later years in care homes, in a lot of cases these folks can be suffering from senile dementia, Alzheimer's disease or just be in a generally frail state of health, this group and there families would at least have peace of mind knowing that all that is humanly possible has been done to check out the credentials and criminal records (if any) of there carers.

As a parent, I wouldn't even think of just hiring a baby sitter from the classified advertisements without first doing some in depth research or receiving a recommendation from a trusted source or friend.

After reading the above you could be forgiven for thinking that I am presenting a very negative view of things but that is not my intention, the intention of this article is just to make you aware of why we need background checks and not to take it personally if any checks are done on yourself, after all if you have nothing to hide then it can only strengthen your position in the eyes of the person conducting the background check.

In the other pages of this site you will find more specific articles dealing with different sorts of background checks and how to conduct them.

Background Reports | Privacy Policy |