Personal Background Check

A personal background check often centers around finding out about an individual’s character, mode of living and general reputation. In addition to the typical background check sources such as public records, interviews with people who know the subject may be conducted. Hobbies and interests may be looked at to get a well-rounded understanding of the individual being searched.

The basic starting information required in personal background checks is the individual’s name, sex, race, date of birth, mother’s maiden name and Social Security Number. Privacy and other laws must always be followed when doing a personal check on another person. Conducting a personal background check on yourself can allow you to get a clear picture about what others searching for your data may find.

A Personal Background Check on Yourself
One source for compiling a consumer report on yourself is the National Credit Reporting Agency (NCRA). You can access your own file from the NCRA. This is typically a good idea for anyone to do because it’s common for mistakes to occur in these files. Any errors can lead to credit being denied when it shouldn’t be.

The NCRA files show financial information including mortgage payment records, tax liens and details about collections on overdue payments. If your Social Security Number was noted incorrectly on your file, or your name was misspelled or confused with another person with a similar name, your credit score could be affected. A personal background check on yourself can help you become aware of any incorrect or missing information so that you can notify the NCRA to correct your file.

While asking people you know what they think about you is ridiculous as you’re likely not to get the same answers as another person asking them about you would get, you have the inner knowledge here as long as you can be honest with yourself. Think about your relationships with different family members, friends, coworkers and neighbors and focus on their point of view on your relationship, not on your own. This should give you the necessary insight to get at least a general idea of what these people would say about you if asked about your general character and how you live.

A Personal Background Check on Others
Depending on the state and your reason for wanting to conduct a personal check on someone, there are many different possible sources you can use. Searching the person’s profile on social networking sites such as Facebook and LinkedIn can reveal basic interests, hobbies and work history. Asking a job applicant for personal references as well as work related ones can give you sources of people to interview in this type of background check.

Doing an address history as well as a public records search for any criminal records and interviews with persons who know the individual, is likely to open up areas for further searching in a personal background check. You may find out about arrest records, tax liens and health issues. Whether the subject owns or rents, is single or married and the number of children he or she has may also be revealed n personal background checks. Privacy laws must always be taken into consideration and the individual typically must give signed permission for the background check to be allowed.