Can I run a background check on myself?

People run self-checks for a boring reason and a scary one. The boring reason is curiosity. The scary reason is a file with their name on it that is not their life.

A vID self-check is the same identity-confirmed flow used for employment screening. You are the one who starts it. You are the one who consents. You are the one who sees the result.

The dedicated page is /self-check. The start door is /start. There is no account maze. Five minutes, phone or computer, $25 once.

What accuracy means on the compiler's side

The Fair Credit Reporting Act has a section numbered 607(b). That section requires consumer reporting agencies to use reasonable procedures to assure maximum possible accuracy.

In January 2024 the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau issued an advisory opinion aimed at background screening. The opinion was issued on January 23, 2024. It was published in the Federal Register the same day.

The opinion says that a consumer reporting agency that reports public record information is not meeting that 607(b) duty if it lacks certain procedures.

One example in the opinion: procedures that prevent reporting of information that is duplicative. Another example: procedures that prevent reporting of information that has been expunged, sealed, or otherwise legally restricted from public access. The opinion also addresses the reporting period for adverse items under FCRA section 605(a)(5).

Fair Credit Reporting; Background Screening (advisory opinion). Advisory opinion dated January 23, 2024. Sealed, expunged, and duplicative public records are an accuracy problem on the compiler.

You cannot audit a vendor's matching rules from the outside. You can look at your own file. That is the self-check: same identity capture, same core searches, result in your hands.

The EEOC's 2012 guidance describes why those files go wrong even when nobody is trying to cheat. A 2011 Department of Justice Bureau of Justice Statistics study, cited in that guidance, reported that as of 2010 many state criminal history repositories still had not recorded the final dispositions for a significant number of arrests. A 2006 DOJ/BJS study found that only 50 percent of arrest records in the FBI's Interstate Identification Index were associated with a final disposition.

The same section notes that a court order to seal or expunge a record does not guarantee that a private screening company's copy is gone. Misspellings and clerical errors produce hits on the wrong person. People who want to hide a record also supply false identifiers, which produces a different kind of miss: a clean search on a fake name.

The EEOC also restates an FCRA limit that matters if you are looking at an arrest. A consumer reporting agency generally may not report records of arrests that did not result in a conviction, where the arrests occurred more than seven years ago. Convictions may be reported indefinitely. If your file shows a decade-old arrest with no conviction, that is a reason to look twice.

Enforcement Guidance on the Consideration of Arrest and Conviction Records in Employment Decisions under Title VII. Section III.A. Incomplete dispositions, unpurged sealed records, and the FCRA's seven-year arrest limit are all reasons a self-check can surprise you before an employer does.

The EEOC's 2012 guidance opens with a population fact that explains why mixed files happen so often. In 1991, 1.8 percent of the adult population had served time in prison. By 2001 that share was 2.7 percent, or 1 in 37 adults. More people with records in the working-age population means more files in the databases, and more chances for a common name to land on the wrong one.

Enforcement Guidance on the Consideration of Arrest and Conviction Records in Employment Decisions under Title VII. Enforcement Guidance No. 915.002, April 25, 2012, Introduction. The Commission is explaining why criminal-record screening became a Title VII issue. More records in circulation also means more chances for two people to share a name on a file.

HireRight's 2022 survey, reported by SHRM in 2023, found that 39 percent of respondents said previously undisclosed convictions were the discrepancy they found most often. Some of those records belong to the candidate. Some of them belong to someone with a similar name. You cannot tell which from a rejection email.

Employers Prioritize Speed Over Accuracy in Background Checks. 39 percent of HireRight's 2022 respondents named undisclosed convictions as the most common discrepancy. A self-check is how you see the file before someone else does.

How you know the file is yours

NIST Special Publication 800-63A describes identity verification as a later step. Evidence has already been treated as valid. The remaining job is to confirm that the evidence refers to the live person presenting it.

The objective is a linkage. One side is the validated evidence for the claimed identity. The other side is the physical, live existence of the person presenting that evidence.

For identity assurance levels 2 and 3, that confirmation is a physical or biometric comparison of the ID portrait to the applicant. Knowledge-based questions are a weaker method, listed at FAIR strength only. A self-check that starts from a typed name can return a stranger. A self-check that starts from your ID and your face cannot.

NIST also requires liveness detection for remote proofing. A still photo of your face is not the check. A live capture is.

SP 800-63A: Identity Verification. The live person is bound to the strongest piece of evidence. That is the selfie-to-portrait step.

What is in the report

The self-check covers the same core searches most employment screenings start with. It is not every search every employer might add.

• A national criminal search across compiled multi-jurisdiction databases.
• A national sex offender registry search covering all 50 states and territories.
• A Social Security number trace of names and addresses associated with the number.
• Identity confirmation, so the file is about you and not a same-name stranger.

An employer may add a motor vehicle record, a drug screen, employment verification, or a deeper county search. Those extras are their process. The self-check still shows the record trail they would be looking at first.

What the self-check is not

It is not a credit report. The FTC names credit reports as one kind of consumer report. This product is the criminal, registry, and identity side.

It is not sent to employers, landlords, or credit bureaus. Nobody is notified that you ran it. vID does not sell the data.

It is not a substitute for an employer's later check. Their report runs under their process. They still have to give you stand-alone notice and get written permission. They may add searches you did not run.

It is not legal advice about what a hit means. The EEOC's 2012 guidance is the Title VII overlay for employers. You are looking at your file. You are not making a hiring decision about yourself under Title VII.

It is not a guarantee that every public record about you is in the file. A national search is a map. A county file that never made it into the compiled databases will not appear until someone pulls that county. If a later employer runs a deeper county search, they may see something this report did not.

What you do, in order

You start the check. There is no account maze. Five minutes, phone or computer, $25 once.

You photograph your photo ID. Details come off the document. You do not re-type them.

You scan your face so the check is tied to you, not to someone who shares your name. The product checks liveness. A photo of a photo does not count.

You read the report. You keep it. If something is wrong, you pursue a correction with the source of the record. An employer's later check is a different process. This one is yours.

vID does not sell the data. vID does not share the report. Nobody is notified that you ran it. You decide if and when anyone else sees it.

What a future employer still has to do

If an employer later uses a consumer report, the FTC says they must give you a stand-alone written notice. They must get written permission before obtaining the report. They must certify compliance to the company supplying the report.

If they take adverse action based on the report, more steps apply. Before the action, they must give you a copy of the report and a copy of "A Summary of Your Rights Under the Fair Credit Reporting Act." After the action, they must tell you they took it, name the consumer reporting company, and tell you that you can dispute the file and request an additional free report within 60 days.

Using Consumer Reports: What Employers Need to Know. Notice, permission, then the report. That sequence belongs to the employer. You still get to see your file first.

The EEOC's 2012 guidance is the Title VII overlay on how arrest and conviction records may be used. An arrest, by itself, does not prove criminal conduct occurred. A conviction usually does. Either way, a hit is not an automatic no. The EEOC names three factors from Green v. Missouri Pacific Railroad: the nature of the offense, the time that has passed, and the nature of the job.

Enforcement Guidance on the Consideration of Arrest and Conviction Records in Employment Decisions under Title VII. Enforcement Guidance No. 915.002, April 25, 2012. Seeing your own file first is ordinary caution, not paranoia.

None of this paragraph is legal advice. Counsel is who maps these rules onto a specific job. The self-check is how you stop being surprised.

If the file is wrong

Common names get mixed. Sealed and expunged cases sometimes still appear, which is the problem the CFPB named in January 2024. Duplicative records, the same case listed twice, are the other example in that opinion.

If something in the report is not yours, or is sealed, or is listed twice, you pursue a correction with the source of the record. vID will point you at the right process. The point of looking first is to do that work before an offer disappears.

The FTC's adverse-action page describes a related right on the employer side. After an employer takes adverse action based on a consumer report, you can dispute the accuracy or completeness of the information and request an additional free report from the consumer reporting company within 60 days. A self-check is earlier than that. It is the look you take before anyone else is in the room.

Start at /start. The dedicated page is /self-check.