Background Screening201:
Know Your SSN
Welcome to class ladies and gentlemen! I am Ms. Snitt, and I’ll be your teacher for the coming quarters.
It’s come to my attention that, while each of you understands the need for background checks and each of you trusts the judgment of whoever recommended the checks you are using, many of you may not have the time to wrap your mind around the actual function of all of the individual checks in your program. A criminal history check is very important, and probably has the most easily understandable purpose, but it doesn’t do the job alone. There are likely a few different products in your package that all perform very specific tasks to keep things running as they should. The question is: can you speak to what each task does and why it’s important?
That’s where Background Screening 201 comes in (as a customer you’ve already passed Background Screening 101: To Perform or to Not Perform Background Checks). So pay careful attention and take notes—you never know when a pop quiz might, well, pop up!
Today we’re going to start off small and simple with SSN verifications, validations and the like.
Aside from the criminal history reports, this could be one of the most important checks you run for one simple reason: if the SSN is fake, the rest of your report may be skewed. Many services run through GIS utilize the SSN as one of the key identifiers. This could mean that if an SSN is incorrect, and especially if another given bit of information is incorrect, records may be missed.
This search can verify that the SSN is real; it can verify that the SSN isn’t on the Social Security Administration’s Death Master Index; the check can even verify when the SSN was issued. If any of these don’t line up with information provided by the applicant (i.e. the SSN was issued before the applicant was born) you may have an issue on your hands.
As you can see, doing an SSN validation is imperative if you want accurate results. Without an accurate SSN, results are much less reliable.
Next class we’ll be covering the chapter titled Where Are You From? The Story Behind Name and Address History Searches.
If, in the meantime, you’ve noticed that you’ve been a bit lax in your recent studies, or you’re not quite sure why you’re running background checks, or if you even just want a refresher, check out our Background Screening FAQ Whitepaper.
Have fun learning and I’ll see you next time!
