Curious Paradox in Background Investigations

Background investigations and compliance seem to embody some "curious paradoxes." Legal experts and industry presenters at the Professional Background Screening Association iterated one such paradox at the 2019 Annual Conference, by consistently echoing the two opposing mantras, "Avoid litigation, and Automate," and "Human intervention is key to avoid litigation." Well, which is it?

We, as investigators, face a difficult challenge in confronting these two seemingly contradictory mantras. We ponder the larger societal implications. Automation can lead to the unintended and detrimental consequences of false identification. Moreover, question where the point of inflection is as we attempt to streamline our services through automation, while at the same time diminishing human intervention in order to protect our organizations, our clients, and the populace they serve.

There must be a balance between automation and human intervention in the conduct of background investigations, and the paradox itself suggests that there is no universal approach. Striking a balance between competing approaches offers a viable value solution to the automation vs. human intervention paradox problem. The other paradox that we investigators face pertains to legislation aimed at protecting identity and individual privacy, which can unintentionally cause more harm than good. This is what we call the “identity protection paradox.” No one wants to improperly reveal subject data or pass on information that does not belong to a subject. We are in the business of protecting others.

Legislation calls for masking personal identifiers, which gives the impression that their identities are protected. However, the unrecognized flip-side reality of this is that it increases the risk of "false positives". Individuals are at risk of becoming falsely associated with records which they have no connection to, and that can have detrimental effects to their reputation and identity.

The reality is that Court Clerks have become more obstructive when it comes to providing as many identifiers as possible in order to facilitate accurate subject-to-record matches. This reticence on the part of Court Clerks shows how deeply the aforementioned consensus runs, and we, in the industry, do not want to improperly reveal subject information. The problem here is that our quest for Court Clerk clarification is not improper, for we act on behalf of subjects, and with their written consent as required by law.

So, what is an investigator to do? Do we pass what is possibly incorrect conviction information about a subject? Do we suppress the case, when the conviction could very well pertain to the subject, and risk a client's safety?

These curious paradoxes pose eternal questions for criminal researchers, which will continue to be asked as we navigate the ever-changing landscape of background investigations compliance. What are the best practices to ensure consumers are protected, and at the same time avoid negligent hiring? In addition, which approaches hold the greatest risks? We must do what we can to find as many identifiers as possible, though becoming trickier each day; we must forge ahead and continue in our daily quest to protect.