Breaking Down InformData's Background Check Automation: An Overview

If you’ve been reading our blog lately, you’ll know that we firmly believe automated background checks is one of the keys to unlocking the growth potential of your consumer reporting agency (CRA).

At InformData, we’ve embraced automation in criminal background screening enthusiastically and unapologetically because we’ve seen how it can help CRAs get more done with fewer researchers when the quality meets or exceeds in-person research. Automation offers a path to scaling your operation while continuing to provide highly accurate criminal background reports.

In our recent coverage, we’ve also explored what makes the “best” background screening automation solution. And we’ve helped you decide whether you should build your own automation platform or partner with a vendor.

Now it’s time to talk about ourselves — not to brag, but because if you do decide to work with a third-party provider for background check automation, we want you to understand how our product differs from anything else you’ll find in the industry.

Here is what you need to know about background check automation from InformData.

How long have we been automating background checks?

As far as we are aware, we were among the first third-party researchers to develop a system that automates the process of searching court websites for arrest and conviction records.

Back in 2012, we recognized that manual search was both labor-intensive and prone to error. We wanted to help our customers make faster and better-informed decisions by providing the best data available and speeding up our turnaround time.

The system we pioneered “scrapes” county-level data for criminal information, essentially replacing human researchers with automated bots.

We haven’t rested on our laurels. In 2017, we rebuilt our automation platform from the ground up to align with the way modern court feeds are designed and to serve our customers even better.

What are the objectives of InformData automation?

We take pride in offering the most comprehensive automated library of criminal background check information, covering the widest reach of counties. But we’re not trying to have the largest library merely to claim we have the largest library. We want the largest library under our quality standards.

That means we’re meticulous about ensuring that we only automate sites that are suitable for automation. We stand by the accuracy of our data because we know you, as a CRA, have to stand by the accuracy of your reports.

We continuously monitor all the sites we automate to ensure they provide the complete information you require for the time periods you need. When they don’t, we supplement our automated process with the work of the most experienced manual researchers in the business.

Why InformData? What are the advantages of partnering With InformData?

We are the only background check automation vendor that provides our customers with HTML snapshots documenting the searches we run and the results we find. These snapshots create an audit trail that will help protect your CRA if your reports are ever challenged.

Another advantage of working with InformData is our ability to normalize and customize the results of our automated searches to fulfill your requirements.

Are you just interested in felonies and not misdemeanors? We can handle that. Do you only want records for the past five years? No problem.

Our criminal background reports won’t overwhelm you with useless data. Our flexible automation solution allows us to set filters so you can focus on the information that matters to you.

Thanks to our years of experience in the background screening industry, we understand that court websites can be (to put it mildly) inconsistent about how they present information. We don’t think you should have to deal with that.

We’re not selling a raw information product. Our team of manual processors takes the data we get from automated search and formats it in a way that makes sense for you from report to report.

This hybrid approach — the most advanced automation in the industry combined with an expert team of manual court researchers and processors — is at the core of what makes InformData's background check automation suite one-of-a-kind.

Do you have more questions about how background check automation works? Click here to get in touch with us.