Background check services can be pricy, with some costing a few hundred dollars to get some basic information on an individual. Many providers also trick users into purchasing a monthly subscription to run a background check. If a user forgets to cancel, they may get charged a small amount indefinitely. In this article, we will discuss some common ways you can use to run a free background check yourself by leveraging the resources that are already available to you.
Social Media
People tend to post their daily lives without worrying about who may get their hands on their data. Some of the social networking platforms like Facebook holds an astonishingly large volume of data on individuals. It is advisable to make use of the data available through the social network. For example, one could use view someone’s public LinkedIn profile and still gain access to the educational and employment-based information on people. You can find a person on social networking websites and see what information on them is available there.
Search Engines
We tend to underestimate the volume of data that search engines have on people. Because the search engines crawl different websites on the web and index them to make the webpages from those websites discoverable, they most likely have the data on you that any website has hosted. If you have some extra information about an individual, like their workplace or college, you could use that information to narrow down your search.
Sex Offender Registry
One of the consequences of becoming a sex offender is that your information is publicly listed as a sex offender. This data is openly available to anyone to identify you as an offender or know that they are potentially at the proximity of an offender. If you are investigating someone, you can search at openly available online sex registries to see any past offensive records. As a concerned individual, you want to stay safe from offenders, and exploring a public sex offender registry will help you.
Local Arrest Records
Many people who are suspected of having been involved in a crime are arrested. Usually, local cities maintain the arrest records and publish those records online to inform the community about the recent arrests. People who violate the law tend to repeat their behavior, resulting in multiple arrests. Searching whether a person has any arrest records can help you understand whether they have been involved in unlawful actions. Any history and relevant information you find can be useful to you in your background check.
These are some common ways you can dig up for someone’s information legally to run a personal background check for free. If you have any other ways that you would like to share, please comment on this post.