If you have verification of employment on one side of the country and this criminal record ping comes from the other, there is a reason to suspect a false positive. Still, an experienced, thorough background check company will be able to flag things that seem like they belong to someone else.
Name-based background checks may turn up false-positive material. If you’re uncertain, seek competent legal counsel.Īnother limitation is that treating fingerprint background checks as a “gold standard” over name-based background checks is somewhat misleading. At CNet Technologies, we always advise HR managers to avoid the inclusion of non-conviction records during the hiring process. A person who was arrested and fingerprinted could have been acquitted or could have had their case thrown out-and the fingerprint records would not give you that information.
The other issue is that fingerprints are taken at the time of arrest and are not always linked to a data set that contains the actual results of a trial. If you need information like background employment verification or education verification, a fingerprint background check will not help you: prints are typically taken in the context of an arrest. The first limitation of fingerprint background checks has to do with the contexts in which a person’s fingerprints are taken. Crucial Limitations of Fingerprint Background Checks However, the drawbacks of fingerprint background checks mean that they are appropriate for far fewer contexts than you might think. At first, this might appear attractive for its main advantage: false-positives on fingerprint background checks are nearly impossible. The alternative that is occasionally presented is the concept of a fingerprint background check.