Private Investigator Public Records Internet Search Privacy Reporting - PI Buzz

A new feature has been introduced at the most popular social networking site, Facebook — which it’s calling Truescoop –, a name search that identifies people by their state of residence and date of birth and, for some, criminal record history. Get more tailored results by qualifying your name search with the person’s year of birth or full date of birth. Nothing at the site spells out the source of the data, but Facebook warns that this is an application merely for fun.

TrueScoop is for entertainment only. TrueScoop is not a substitute for a background check that you would pay money for.

TrueScoop should not be used to make any employment decisions. TrueScoop is not to be used for any reason covered by the Fair Credit Reporting Act (FCRA) or any state or Federal laws related to the FCRA.

TrueScoop is a criminal history check similar to that at Criminal Searches. Both aggregate criminal records index information that is available for free online from state and county government court sites. Each display their data differently so you might find one format more usable. The data varies between individual records on each site; sometimes only one site will list AKAs, but then the other site will do so for other records. Sometimes Facebook identifies the local court in which the charge was filed but not the court docket number, and Criminal Searches gives the court number but not the local jurisdiction, but it’s not consistent within or between the sites. Comprende? Mix and match, if you can! The best advise might be to head to the court Web site once you find a lead from either of these other applications. Locate courts and lots of other public records through a fee-based service, this free-trial site or at the free sites offered by BRB Publications or Online Searches.

TrueScoop also shows names that have been searched by others and the number of times. Select the name link to populate the search field and get record results. A name search may also return records of unclaimed money and sex offenders (with photos), in addition to the state locator showing date of birth.

A Facebook account is required to use TrueScoop, but this application is separate from Facebook and there’s no link between it and Facebook profiles.

Mashable writes, TrueScoop Offers Free Public Record Search on Facebook.

The governor of Alabama signed an executive order that creates an online database of all state government spending and legislators’ relationships with lobbyists. This will go online later this year, but many other states have already made available government spending, salary and revenue databases, often in a site dedicated to issues of transparency in government.

Review the Nevada state budget by general revenue, expenditures, departments or function at Nevada Open Government. Also, lookup vendors with state contracts.

Open Georgia includes a searchable database of state employees and their salaries.

South Carolina gathers together links to their various online databases including, state expenditures and salaries.

Similar sites have been assembled by Kentucky, Rhode Island (also see, Transparency Train) and South Dakota.

Transparency rankings and states with spending online are listed at Sunshine Review.

Track transparency in government spending issues reported by independent organizations in Colorado and Illinois.

Legislation, citizen activism and current news on state government transparency can be found at the Center for Fiscal Accountability.

The National Motor Vehicle Title Information System (NMVTIS) database is active now in 27 states. Check automobile titling information, including some historical theft data. This U.S. Department of Justice project was initiated to curb title fraud and the sale of junk cars.

NMVTIS provides consumers and others with vehicle information such as:

* Current and previous state of title.
* Title issue date.
* Most recent odometer reading.
* Any brand(s) applied to the vehicle.
* Date the brands were applied.
* Any auto recycler or junk or salvage yard history for the vehicle.
* Any insurance company salvage determination (including “total loss”) history for the vehicle.

The data is hosted by two vendors. Check vehicles by VIN through Auto Data Direct or CARCO Group.

How does this data compare to a CARFAX search?

In the past few years, general circulation newspapers have furthered the cause of government transparency by providing searchable databases of government employees and their salaries. Although these are federal, state, county and municipal government public records the corresponding government agencies have not made these available at their Web sites. Government agency Web sites sometimes post a staff list or employee directory — not salaries — with name, telephone number and email. Often, school districts don’t list staff beyond those in the top level administration, but school sites that have their own Web pages may have a staff and faculty directory with names of administrators and teachers. An example of a very flexible school staff and teacher directory is hosted by the Ventura County Office of Education. Search by district, school or employee last name to find the district, school site, job title and phone number (Internet Explorer, only). I’ve endeavored to compile links to all of the government pay databases hosted at newspaper sites on a page called Government Pay.

The disadvantage of the separate databases is you have to know which one to search in order to verify your subject’s employment. The beta site, myDanwei, is a nascent attempt at a cross-agency compilation of government employee names, salaries, job titles and departments. Select the link,
National public employee salary database, to search by partial name, county, state, agency or institution. There’s only one search box, but you can enter a combination of keywords. The words (without quotation marks) “physician santa clara” will return a list of doctors who work for the County of Santa Clara, California. The extent of the coverage becomes apparent with various queries. The keywords “Weir Idaho” doesn’t return any records, but “Weir Washington” results in a handful of names from Washington State agencies. Just enter a state name into the search box to find out if any data is included from that location and from which government departments.

MyDanwei doesn’t identify its sources and this description of the utility isn’t very enlightening.

MyDanwei, Inc. is a pioneer of developing the next generation organization, people, salary, and job information searching and data mining platforms. We are inspired to provide our users with easy and accurate information about a person or an organization, such as salary, education background, past employments, key employees, job positions, etc. Besides one of the most comprehensive databases with millions of records of organization, people, salary, and jobs, our website also features state-of-the-art user interface, where everyone can freely add, edit, discuss, tag, and rate all records about people and organizations around the globe.

The search box on the myDanwei home page can be used to access minimal information on some private and public companies. Again, the source and completeness of the data is not identified. These are leads, not confirmations!

How does this site compare with the newspaper government employee databases?

A database of convicted drunk drivers is slated to go online by the end of 2008, hosted by the Ohio Department of Public Safety. Ohio’s SB 17 mandates the creation of an Internet registry listing personal information on repeat offenders. Read the press release that details the characteristics of the Habitual OVI/OMWI Offender Registry.

All offenders having 5 or more OVI/OMWI convictions (or equivalent offenses) in the past 20 years must be listed on the Registry, to include:
• Offender’s name
• Date of birth
• Residential address including street address, municipal corporation or township, county and zip code
• Number of times within the preceding 20 years the offender has been convicted of an OVI/OMWI violation
• Dates of OVI/OMWI violation

The Registry must be made available to the public online, to be searchable by the offender’s name, county or zip code.

Add this to the growing collection of boutique criminal registries.

Northwestern University hosts this searchable database of homicides in Chicago that occurred between 1870 and 1930. The mandatory search field is street name, but many other criteria can be added.

Read the description of this massive project, transferring handwritten records to a digital format.

The Chicago Historical Homicide Project began with the discovery of the availability of a rich log of more than 11,000 homicides maintained consistently and without interruption by the Chicago Police Department over the course of 60 years, from 1870 to 1930.

A search by street name returns a list of records with a short case summary. This image is about half of the data from one of those records.

Public records researchers will appreciate the pop up window of sources for related original documents.

The one change to the database I would wish for is to be able to search by name, but the option to download the data in an Excel file should remedy that limitation.

Before your eyes glaze over, your head goes into free-fall, allow me to point you to the National Association of Insurance Commissioners (NAIC) database of insurers who have been in receivership. This newly initiated project to get all state insurance commissioners to supply data on insurance providers licensed in their states, now contains historical data and will expand to include balance sheet information of active receiverships. The strangely named, Global Receivership Information Database (GRID) –since, I think, it’s just national — is “a voluntary database provided by the state insurance departments to report information on insurer receiverships for consumers, claimants, and guaranty funds.”

Information from more than 1,200 receiverships, provided by state insurance departments in all 50 states and the District of Columbia, are housed within GRID. This includes such information as receivership contact information, relevant court orders and docket numbers, ongoing tasks, distribution of assets, claims-liability details, business activity and deposits.

The other NAIS database, Company Search for Complaint and Financial Information, is a search by insurer name, which only provides the states in which the company is licensed and statistical information on complaints. NAIS points you to the state map with links to state insurance commissioners to get details on actual complaints. Problem is, many states don’t have that information at their Web sites, so you’ll have to make a state Freedom of Information Act request.

Texas gives an extensive explanation of the information in their complaint files, provides the records, but in a form that’s cumbersome to use. Their database of disciplinary actions against insurers and agents is searchable, covering 1996-2008.

Does your state have complaints against insurers online?

The Missouri Secretary of State now has a statewide Voter Information Lookup online. Enter the person’s first and last name, county and street name. If you’ve correctly matched that personal information, you have to select the correct street address, as you can see in this image.

Then you’ll get a confirmation that the person is registered to vote.

If you can rely on current voter registration status to verify where someone lives, then this could be useful.

Have you found that the voter registration lookup sites return valuable information?

The Empire Center for New York State Policy has begun to build databases to make New York government more transparent. Just today, the Center’s project, SeeThruNY unveiled a database of names and salaries for more than 263,000 employees of New York’s state government. Search their other databases of New York government contracts and expenditures.

Is it a tool, or will you be fooled? That all depends on how familiar you are with searching criminal records. Read my review of this criminal records search guide if you’d like to learn more about how criminal records are maintained. The free people finder sites offer more details for a fee, but this is much more pricey than professional databases, usually returning less current records and ones that are more geographically restricted.

The free criminal records lookup site, CriminalSearches.com, is operated by the California company, Confi-chek, a commercial provider of consumer public records. You’ve probably made use of the free portion of their PeopleFinders.com site to verify alternative names, identify associates or obtain an approximate age.

The criminal records at CriminalSearches are likely a portion of the state, and California county records that Peoplefinders.com has on its site’s fee-based criminal records search. These records come from each states’ Department of Corrections, Administrative Office of the Courts and Department of Public Safety (Minnesota, Oklahoma and Texas). The most number of records come from the states’ Department of Corrections because this is a statewide agency in every state. These are felony convictions only of offenders who have been in the custody of the DOC. Some state records include county court criminal filings, helpful for finding criminal records that didn’t result in a conviction, a prison sentence or were in a state that doesn’t have a statewide criminal index. California, for one.

The site is still in test mode so the same search could produce different results, but then you knew this wasn’t a comprehensive criminal records database, right?

Use the “Advanced Search” to add city, data of birth and nature of offense parameters. I did a name search, selected “sexual offenses”, assuming results would come only from the sex offender database, but found this record of a dismissed sexual offense - which would not be reportable to a registered sexual offender database. If you want to find records with the first name “Jeff” or “Jeffrey” put an asterisk after “Jeff” (Jeff*) and the search will return both. This doesn’t work with the last name field.

Also, receive a monthly email of criminal records changes on as many as 5 names.

Do you have any cautionary tales for using this site, or do you recommend it?

Juror names and jury questionnaires are public records and subject to disclosure even if a trial judge has made promises to the contrary. At least in North Dakota. A ruling by that state’s Supreme Court, cited by the Associated Press, rebuffed a trial court’s claim that the records in one case were sealed out of fear that the jurors could be harassed.

“We conclude those reasons, by themselves, are insufficient to rebut the presumption of openness and to warrant a blanket closure in this case…”

Court rulings may seem like a bouncing ball when it comes to privacy, public records and electronic messaging. The 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in San Francisco has asserted that companies do not have an automatic right to access employees’ text messages if the data is stored on outside servers. Read more about this decision and the significance for privacy and data management. Some other news stories on email access and public records can be found at WikiFOIA.

Maybe it’s a trend in the refinement of the sex offender databases and regulation of where registered sex offenders can live.Tennessee has joined Indiana (see this court ruling on the Indiana law), Missouri, Kentucky and Alaska requiring registered sex offenders submit their email addresses, which are being added to those state online databases. States can’t keep track of the physical location of registrants so the email address disclosure may not be of much value to public safety.

Search the Motorcycle Accident Reports Database by state and county for all 50 states, covering 2002-2006. The Gannett News Service pooled government and proprietary data to create the reports.The accident reports don’t identify the parties to the accident, but they list the date and time, place, nature of the accident, whether it was a fatality, the type of motorcycle involved and the hometown of the motorcycle driver. This is an example of a full profile.

How could this database be helpful to you in your investigations or research?

The recent California Supreme Court decision overturning California’s law banning same-sex marriage as unconstitutional provides a timely discussion of the domestic partnership registry. California, among other states and municipalities provides a means for couples — variously, same or opposite sex in civil unions or domestic partnerships — to register their relationship.

I don’t know of any online database of names of registered domestic partners, but there are data sources. This is the old-fashioned and still often the most reliable means of confirming a fact: call or visit the relevant government office! In California, the Secretary of State records the Declaration of Domestic Partnership and the Termination of Domestic Partnership. This office responds to telephone inquiries and will search by a name, providing the partner name, date of registration and the residential address. You can also go to one of the offices to get a copy of either form.

Oregon defines a domestic partnership registration as a vital record, which is confidential. Domestic Partnership Registration in New York City is with the City Clerk. County Recorder offices and state health departments are also repositories for these filings. Some cities, counties and states that have civil union or domestic partnership laws are listed here.

Currently, there are 49,550 registrations on file at the California Secretary of State. Of these, about 5,600 have filed terminations. By law, this office only accepts terminations up to 5 years after registration. Beyond that time, couples must go to court to end a domestic partnership.

What has been your experience requesting information from a domestic partnership registry?

If you’re researching background on health care providers take a look at the National Plan and Provider Enumeration System database. You’ll find any type of medical service provider who accepts Medicare or Medicaid. Search by partial name, city, state or zip code. Results may include home address, business address and telephone number, type of service offered, professional license type and number, and the states in which they are licensed.

The database isn’t limited to licensed professionals; it also includes case managers and addiction recovery service staff, among others. Some non doctor licensees include acupuncturists, chiropractors, physical therapists and nurses.

Addiction recovery counselors in California may be certified by any accredited organization. Two certification databases are at the California Certification Board of Alcohol and Drug Counselors and the California Association of Addiction Recovery Resources. Find people working as alcohol and drug counselors, who may not be certified, at the American Academy of Health Care Providers in the Addictive Disorders database. This site also lists the employers.

Pacific Information Resources, Inc., familiarly known as Search Systems, has released a guide to researching criminal records. The document is viewable online and can also be downloaded as a PDF. Search Systems provides links to commercial and government-operated databases of public record information on the Internet. Most of these are free, but access to the huge collection has a small fee.

The site categorizes links to all imaginable public records that are available on the Internet. Some popular types of public records included are: Births, Marriages and Deaths, Corporations, Court Records, Fictitious Business Names, Professional Licenses, Real Property, Recorded Documents, and Voter Registrations.

The Criminal Records Search Guide addresses the myth of a nationwide criminal records database and lists the different types of criminal records and their agency source. It also identifies non court records of sanctions and enforcement databases. This is a basic tutorial, designed for the casual or non professional researcher.

But the primary emphasis is on the Search Systems collection of criminal records — both the free links, called DirectPass, and the fee-based criminal records database, part of the Premium searches. Premium searches are discounted for DirectPass subscribers, but incur an additional fee.

The Premium criminal records content is from a commercial database but is reformatted by Search Systems, usable as a cut-and-paste text document. The text formatting enhances this product over the html one of the data provider. Search by full or partial first and last name, with an option to limit by date of birth or year of birth. The cost is $7 per state search or $19 for a search of all available jurisdictions, if you are a subscriber to DirectPass.

The most comprehensive search of criminal records will utilize the free government-sponsored sites — those listed in the DirectPass collection and Internet sources that haven’t yet found their way into the Search Systems public records. Also, a comprehensive search for criminal records must include a commercial database — probably 2 to 3 databases, depending on the jurisdiction one is searching. There is no substitute for hand searching court records, whether or not the particular jurisdiction is encompassed in the online records.

While some people may endeavor to scrub their online reputation, most people aren’t concerned about personal information on the Internet. Investigators make use of formally and unintentional, detrimental and laudatory personal information that’s posted online to check the background of witnesses, jurors, plaintiffs, defendants, insurance claimants, potential business associates or employees and anyone whose reputation and activities must be known. That’s a deep pool, and the Internet can offer a lot that isn’t otherwise easily accessible.

Government agencies that regulate professional licenses are increasingly putting violations by licensees on their Web sites. But don’t overlook private associations of professionals that discipline their members, because they may have descriptions of alleged wrongdoing that go beyond that on the government Web site. Take a look at the American Institute of Certified Public Accountants (AICPA) disciplinary action for a David J. Burton (use your “find” tool). Now look at the State of Illinois, Division of Professional Regulation entry. He was charged with a violation of the code of ethics of AICPA, but the government site doesn’t have a record of this.

Generally, you find citations and enforcement actions at the Web site of the agency that regulates the specific profession. Select the profession in the drop-down menu at the Colorado State site for a list of license violations. This is a badly designed site, without a search by name mechanism. I have the same complaint about the North Carolina Real Estate Commission disciplinary actions, but those can be uncovered with a search engine query.

Here are some other government sites listing professional license disciplinary actions:

California Chiropractic Examiners (Search names in all disciplinary reports with a search engine query.)

California Court Reporters

California Physical Therapy Board, Citations and Disciplinary Actions

Ohio State Board of Emergency Medical Services, Disciplinary Actions (Search at Google example: kavanaugh intitle:”disciplinary actions” site:ems.ohio.gov/)

Accountants

Maryland State Board of Public Accountancy

Ohio Accountancy Board Disciplinary Hearings

Educators

Pennsylvania Department of Education, Professional Standards and Practices Commission

Vermont Department of Education

Do you have a favorite site of professional license disciplinary actions?

Search by name or partial name to find disciplinary actions by the California Department of Corporations against employees of escrow agents. Results provide full name, date of action and the restriction imposed.

This database contains listing of individuals that, from January 1, 1991 to the present, have been censured, suspended, or barred by the California Department of Corporations pursuant to Financial Code section 17423 of the Escrow Law.

Find companies and loans they’ve acquired through the Small Business Administration business loans approved database. Search by approval year and state to get a list of all companies receiving SBA loans, with the loan amount, approval date and city where the company is based. Or, to search across all years for which data is supplied and to get other SBA documents on a company, try this search query.

Also, search the database of the Small Business Administration certifications of businesses that are women, minority or veteran owned. Then go to USA Spending to search for any contracts the company has been awarded by government agencies and the dollar amount.

Those who research historical records - as I do for Quiet Title actions, family history and heir locates - will find the new California Voter Registrations - 1900-1968, supplied by Ancestry.com very helpful. You can search a name for free, but a subscription is required to view an image of the record.

The State of Connecticut Judicial Branch, Conviction & Bond Forfeiture Dispositions Criminal/Motor Vehicle database supplements the Pending Criminal Cases search.

The holdings and limitations are described at the site.

# Each Criminal And Motor Vehicle Charge Disposed On And After January 1, 2000 In Which The Court Disposition Was A Conviction Is Included

# Each Criminal And Motor Vehicle Charge In Which The Court Action Was Concluded By A Bond Forfeiture Order On And After January 1, 2000 Is Included

* A Motor Vehicle Matter Disposed By Way Of Bond Forfeiture Is Deemed A Conviction Pursuant To Connecticut General Statutes Section 14-1(a)(18)

# Youthful Offender And Juvenile Cases Are Not Displayed

# This Criminal History Record Information May Change Daily Due To Erasures, Corrections, Pardons, And Other Modifications To Individual Criminal History Record Information.

Identify civil surgeons who have been designated by the Bureau of Citizenship and Immigration Services to perform medical exams on applicants. Search by state or zip code. Or search by name from a search engine with the query: name site:uscis.gov. Replace the word name with the personal name.

Find criminal and administrative actions against doctors at the Drug Enforcement Administration, Diversion Control Program site. A search by last name or year returns name, location, date of arrest, conviction result, DEA registration status and a case summary. This database goes back to 2003. Search older registrant actions from a search engine with the query: name site:www.deadiversion.usdoj.gov/.

The online telephone directory, 411.com isn’t just for finding listed telephone numbers. Use it to identify current employment or to expand the employment history profile of your subject. A search on my name in California returned 40 results. Some are home listings, but other records are work contacts. These are extracted from the Internet - Web pages and Zoominfo - and may supplement the business associations found at various other people finder sites.

Google the work designation “Mt Diablo Soccer League” to find a photo, phone number and email for this Tamara Thompson.

Most of the free lookup, fee-based people finder sites - PeopleFinders, Voompeople, Privateeye, to name a few, - contain the same data, although those may list corporation and DBA records not found at 411.com.

The recent proposal by the governor of Connecticut requiring that these sites offer a blanket opt-out to residents likely won’t get legal traction. The Internet people finder databases and telephone directories already have opt-out procedures, and their information is gathered from government public records and published directories. Governor Rell has stated that this measure would address safety concerns for the elderly, who are often targeted in financial scams.

The U.S. National Archives and Records Administration, Access to Archival Databases (NARA AAD) maintains searchable collections of government records and indexes online. The most popular are military: World War II Army Enlistment Records, Records on Korean War Dead and Wounded Army Casualties, Records of World War II Prisoners of War and Records with Unit Information on Military Personnel Who Died During the Vietnam War. The NARA AAD also has an index of historical Securities and Exchange Commission public companies - searchable by officer and director names and company names. This supplements (although the NARA doesn’t have the documents online) the free full text search in the EDGAR system at the SEC (which is only the past 4 years) and the header information in SEC filings (which goes to 1994).

View the short tutorial on searching the holdings of:

Proposed Sale of Unregistered Securities by Individuals, created, 1/4/1972 - 9/29/2000 and

Trading of Securities by Corporate Insiders, created, 7/11/1978 - 3/12/2001

| View | Upload your own

The New York Attorney General site, Project Sunlight, makes many New York State public records accessible in one search. Conduct a name search simultaneously through corporation, charities, lobbyist, financial contributions and state contracts databases.

U.S. Passport Applications 1795-1925 have been collected together into one database that can be searched by name or date and other criteria. Ancestry.com has assembled this from U.S. government sources The images of original applications may include photographs, physical descriptions, country of origin, place of residence, travel companions, marriage status and affidavits of relatives.

Search the FamilySearch.org index of international birth, death and marriage records collected by the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. ProGenealogists collect links to international vital records that are searchable in online databases.

The U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, Find a Substance Abuse Treatment Facility Locator, is an online mapping tool and address finder that includes:

* Private and public facilities that are licensed, certified, or otherwise approved for inclusion by their State substance abuse agency

* Treatment facilities administered by the Department of Veterans Affairs, the Indian Health Service and the Department of Defense.

Search by city and state and expand the range up to 100 miles. Results are mapped and a list of facilities, with address, phone, hours and types of treatment offered is generated. Or find a facility by name or partial name only.

Although the Federal Highway Administration collects all kinds of data on the condition of bridges it’s not presented in a consumer friendly format. You can download files by Deficient Bridges by State and Highway System, Highway Bridge by Owner or Bridge by State.

Query the citizen run National Bridge Inventory Database, which has been overwhelmed with hits since the recent Minneapolis collapse, for any bridge data, but here’s Minneapolis NBI Structure 9340.

A Deficient or Obsolete Bridges database with a state by state map has been assembled by MSNBC. Select a state, then click on the small type link, “Click here to see major state bridges on list”. Find out whether the bridge is obsolete or deficient (an engineering distinction, both of which sound bad) and its safety rating. Keep in mind that the last structural evaluation for the Minneapolis bridge concluded: “Meets minimum tolerable limits to be left in place as is”.

The International Association of Insurance Fraud Agencies links to state government insurance agencies, insurance fraud associations and international organizations. In the U.S., the same government agency can be responsible for investigating individuals who defraud insurance companies as well as dishonest insurance representatives who steal from or otherwise defraud the consumer. This site covers both types of resources.

The Coalition Against Insurance Fraud delivers consumer fraud alerts and research papers to journalists. The Coalition also has brief summaries of various insurance scams.

The Fraud Prevention Checklist is an interactive guide to assessing a company’s vulnerability to fraud, provided by the Association of Certified Fraud Examiners.

Get insurance company financial profiles and data on the types of policies they issue, from the National Association of Insurance Commissioners.

Consumer education and tips on email scams, mortgage costs, tainted drugs and identity theft prevention are at the federal government Federal Citizen Information Center, Consumer Action Web site. The site also has a complaint form letter and a list of all the federal agencies to which you direct your complaints, with topical indicators (i.e. “Airline Accessibility or Discrimination” or “Telephone Service”)

Some states list enforcement actions at their Web site. The Maryland Insurance Administration regulates Maryland insurance companies and agents. It issues public orders of actions it takes against agents, agencies and brokers, cataloged to 2003. Search all enforcement actions by keyword from the Google search engine using this query but replacing “keyword” with your terms.

keyword site:www.mdinsurance.state.md.us/