Public and Private Records: Five Ways to Use Them

Regardless of the industry, you will likely have to conduct investigative research in your professional career. For example, private investigators and legal professionals understand how crucial every piece of information about a person can be. However, searching through hundreds of records for small pieces of information can be rather tedious and time-consuming. Having the right tools can make your search through public and private records easy and efficient. You gather the data you need by filtering out irrelevant databases, thus saving a lot of time and money.

Keep reading to find out more about the different ways to use public and private records to acquire user data easily and quickly.

Start with a Criminal Background Check

Gathering an individual’s comprehensive criminal history starts with a simple criminal background check. In the legal profession, past convictions or arrests could reflect negatively on a witness’s character. When a person has a history of defying law enforcement officers, they stand to lose credibility in the court of law.

Companies also benefit from criminal background checks when performing a risk assessment. A simple public records search can reveal all the information you need on an applicant’s criminal history. Therefore, you can filter out candidates who don’t match your company culture and motto.

Assess Financial Strength Using a Financial Background Check

Financial services can only perform vendor risk assessment or customer due diligence after running a financial background check. Looking through financial records helps you understand a person’s past behavior. Therefore, businesses can make informed decisions when giving out credit.

Financial background checks can also help you build customer profiles. Someone’s financial history tells a lot about their character. Using investigative research software, such as Enformion, can help you uncover financial relationships, tax liens, and bankruptcy records.

Use Asset Searches to Uncover Fragmented or Hidden Information

Public and private records can sometimes be incomplete. Other times, you might end up with pieces of information that do not match. Therefore, the best way to get the complete picture of an individual is through unbanked data and asset searches. Whether a person is hiding information from you, intentionally or not, doing this is guaranteed to uncover the truth.

An asset search is an excellent place to start when exposing any assets that a person may be hiding. This information is especially useful in repossessions or family law settlements. In some instances, you might need to dive a little deeper with utility listings data to cross-check information unavailable in the public records.

Leverage Person Search to Discover Relationships

What happens when an individual doesn’t want to get found? Well, an in-depth person search can help understand the different relationships that that individual has. Knowing this information will help you define this person’s character and where they might be at that particular time.

Learning about an individual’s friends and relatives is crucial in the real estate, legal, and investigation profession. You can also get more information, including their aliases, business partners, known associates, and so much more. Therefore, person searches can make it easier to locate a witness or skip trace someone.

Utilize Social Media Searches to Research People’s Activities

Learning about a person’s activities and hobbies will get you a complete picture of their personality. When conducting a social media search, you get to know a person’s lifestyle and interests. For instance, how often do they post on political forums? Are they the type that posts content or comments on other people’s content?

Legal professionals use social media searches to locate credible witnesses to put on the stand. Businesses can also use this information when building a buyer persona. These searches will always give you a better understanding of what a person frequently does or is interested in.

Get the Right Tools

Although public and private records databases can help you excel in your profession, the research can be overwhelming. Luckily, Enformion is here to ensure the process is easy and efficient. You can quickly build an individual’s comprehensive profile using our extensive database. Contact us today to find out more.