Flawed Fingerprinting

The System Is Not What You Think It Is

When you run fingerprints on your applicants, do you believe you are doing your due diligence to protect the safety of your coworkers, clients, and products? Unfortunately, the system is not as perfect as one might expect. The government itself recommends using both fingerprinting and a consumer reporting agency for the best transparency when reviewing an applicant's criminal history. Using both is not redundant — it is the only way to approach complete coverage.

The FBI Database Is Missing Half the Picture

The United States Department of Justice recommends utilizing consumer reporting agencies as a source to receive the most up-to-date and accurate information regarding criminal cases. Why? Because the FBI-maintained system is missing an astonishing fifty percent of the final dispositions on their records. An arrest appears, but whether the charge was dismissed, reduced, or resulted in conviction is often absent.

The FBI system was created for government use and gradually opened for employment purposes. Keeping it current is a local and state-level responsibility — and that's where the breakdown begins.

The Connectivity Gap: A Real-World Consequence

It is entirely possible for someone to commit a crime in one county and then another county within the same state, and the jurisdictions may never connect those records through fingerprinting alone. This is due in part to privatized fingerprinting vendors and a lack of data sharing between agencies.

Consider Houston, Texas — the fourth largest city in the country. Houston sits in Harris County, yet for years Houston and Harris County operated separate fingerprinting vendors that did not share information universally. Records fell through the gap between two systems covering the same geography.

A more sobering example: Alabama investigators pulled prints from a robbery and homicide scene but lacked connectivity to the FBI database. The suspect went on to commit ten more killings — the individual later known as the "DC Sniper." Prints were on file in the immigration and naturalization database. The connection was never made in time. There are an estimated 600 separate fingerprint systems across federal, state, and local levels. Until a cohesive connection is enforced between all three, the gaps will remain.

Arrests Are Not Convictions — and That Matters Legally

When a fingerprint report returns arrest information, it is critical to remember that an arrest does not mean conviction. And a conviction does not necessarily mean the record currently stands — charges can be expunged, reduced, or overturned. If you deny employment based solely on arrest records from a fingerprint report, you may expose your organization to a lawsuit under EEOC guidance — even if the decision was unintentional. This is not a hypothetical risk. It happens.

What a Consumer Reporting Agency Does Differently

Consumer reporting agencies must comply with the FCRA (Fair Credit Reporting Act) — a set of federal regulations that govern how criminal history information is collected, verified, and reported. At Research Services, we will never provide a report that shows only an arrest date with no disposition. We do our due diligence to provide complete, current case information, and we stay current on local reporting laws across every jurisdiction we cover.

This matters for your liability. When making a hiring decision or an adverse action decision, the quality and completeness of the underlying report determines your legal exposure. A fingerprint-only approach does not meet the standard the FCRA was designed to enforce.

The Right Approach: Both, Together

Fingerprinting and a criminal background check through a consumer reporting agency are not competing tools — they serve different functions. Fingerprinting identifies a person biometrically. A CRA-run criminal search pulls court records across the jurisdictions where that person has lived and worked, verifies dispositions, and presents findings in an FCRA-compliant format. Used together, they provide substantially more protection than either one alone.

If you have questions about how to supplement your fingerprinting program or want to understand what a complete screening package looks like for your organization, contact us today.