Comment by programmertote | Hacker News Reader

Comment by programmertote | Hacker News Reader

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Tangentially related -- My wife recently had to provide her SSN, DoB and her fingerprint scanned by a third-party company [https://www.printscan.com/about-us/], which is "owned, and operated by active and retired Law Enforcement Officers". We both felt really uncomfortable providing such sensitive information to a third party company, but had no choice because Florida board of medicine [https://flboardofmedicine.gov/] uses PrintScan as a partner to do background checks. The fee was $125 for fingerprint scanning at one of their locations.

According to that company's 'About Us' page, "PrintScan’s certified fingerprint technicians undergo extensive background checks before being cleared with the FBI, NYS Department of Criminal Justice Services, Florida Department of Law Enforcement, and Homeland Security."

I looked up on the FBI website to see if they provide similar background check service, and sure they do for $18! I have a hard time figuring out why FL board of medicine uses a third party service instead of FBI to do background checks, and also wondered why shouldn't FBI background check be enough/sufficient for criminal activity (i.e. don't states share their criminal records with FBI?). All of this is to say that the existence of companies like PrintScan--and the fact that one of the state governments uses it--is definitely concerning to me.

I used to work with the FBI fingerprint system IAFIS.

It was a very complete system at the time and used in many situations for background checks for everything from LEOs to day care centers for cheap. We also had hard requirements around 99% of responses had to come back within 10 minutes.

Anyway, that's changed quite a bit the last few years..

More and more State & Local stopped participating in the system - https://www.washingtonpost.com/crime-law/2021/12/09/fbi-poli... - so huge swathes of data just isn't available anymore. Then more DAs are choosing to prosecute fewer crimes and negotiating down serious crimes that would trigger alerts (usually felonies) to lesser crimes so the data that is there may not be representative of the situation. And finally, the overall crime statistics are being characterized as "racist" so the FBI is getting more cautious about what they release and how.

So.. less data, incomplete/wrong data, and less access to the data.

All of those mean "competitors" have room to operate.

I know you had several points in this comment but this stuck out to me

> Then more DAs are choosing to prosecute fewer crimes and negotiating down serious crimes that would trigger alerts (usually felonies) to lesser crimes so the data that is there may not be representative of the situation.

Isn’t this representative of the situation? They didn’t get a felony and the background check shows they didn’t get a felony? Are background checks supposed to be extra punishment on top of what the judicial system determines?

When the government goes soft on crime, you need to look deeper to find the truth about matters. And make no mistake, it has gone soft in some places. I would pay extra to have a background check turn up everything it can, so I can make my own determination.

I still think that’s not something you’d want to have come back from a government background check. As long as they they are dutifully reporting the truth of the matter in terms of how the government ruled on the case then that seems like enough.

What your describing sounds like it should stay out of government hands just on an ethical basis

The employer is asking for a background check to minimize losses/insurance payments due to employee theft. If the government background check does not reflect the risk of the individual being involved in theft in the past (for whatever reason), then the employer will find another, perhaps even less ethical provider of information to assess the risk.

It's a case of a measure ceasing to be a good measure because it became a target.

The purpose of running a background check is to predict if someone will be a problem. But they work by measuring interactions with the legal system (probably convictions in particular?). And if suddenly most of the behavior you care about stops generating records of interactions, well background checks just got a loss less useful.

One thing I’m not very happy about is that in the US, in order to get a background check of any kind, you need to get fingerprinted and have those prints enrolled in the FBI’s database regardless of if a match comes up. In many other countries, a background check is just querying the national criminal record database for your identity, which seems much more proportionate for most employment based background checks. I’m not thrilled about being enrolled in a fingerprint database because latent prints exist and are so inaccurate.

When I was there, this was absolutely false.

Any fingerprints submitted as a background check were required by law to be deleted pretty quickly (within hours, iirc). Fingerprints submitted as part of an arrest were different.

Unfortunately, that may have changed as many gun control advocates have pushed to keep fingerprints from background checks on file indefinitely. I don't know if they've been successful.

This is not generally true anymore, since NGI and the rap back service, background check prints are retained.

See https://www.fbi.gov/services/cjis/compact-council/privacy-ac...

> as many gun control advocates have pushed

those are not the ONLY ones with that interest !

I had background checks done on me by my previous employers, but none of them asked me for fingerprints.

here they go for the credit record right away I think

in the US, in order to get a background check of any kind, you need to get fingerprinted

This is false. I've had my background checked at least a dozen times. Most recently, just this past October, and I have never given my fingerprints to anyone.

You are correct. What I meant was a government issued/recognized background check.

The government background check for buying firearms does not involve fingerprints either.

It is required for security clearances. For those positions you also give up 4A protection.

I attest to this. I have fingerprints filed with at least 10 different civilian fed agencies.

Depends on which firearms. NFA items absolutely do need fingerprints.

True but that's less than 1% of firearm purchases. Normal 4473 purchases don't require fingerprints or photos or anything like that.

> PrintScan’s certified fingerprint technicians undergo extensive background checks

Uh huh. Just like these guys, right?

"NSA staff used spy tools on spouses, ex-lovers: watchdog" https://www.reuters.com/article/us-usa-surveillance-watchdog...

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/LOVEINT

I don't think there is any reason for involving a private company, aside from the kickback/corruption ones. I've had to get fingerprinted and background checked for several jobs in different states and all were done through the local police department.

Why? Because corruption

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