Background & Criminal Records Articulos

Criminal records edition

7 guides published

One document, five names — and what they asked you for may not be one

FRONT PAGE
WHERE ORDERS GO WRONG
THE FIVE NAMES
RECORD AND PERSON
THE FILE
ALL GUIDES

The lead

Rap sheet, FBI background check, Identity History Summary: one document wearing three names

Rap sheet, from Record of Arrests and Prosecutions, is the informal name for the FBI’s Identity History Summary. The same document travels under several names, and knowing they are equivalent is what saves you from ordering the wrong product — paying for something that will not satisfy the request you were handed.

Background Checks · Background & Criminal Records

An illustration of an FBI Identity History Summary document

The harder half is that a checklist asking for a «background check» may not be asking for that document at all. Some ask for a national police certificate, some for state records, some for local police letters, some for records from every country you have lived in — and some for a combination.

Start here

Three steps, in the order that avoids paying twice.

Work out which paper is being requested

The equivalences, and the documents that are not equivalent at all.

Then how the record gets produced

Fingerprints, the search, and the response the FBI issues.

And if it has to travel abroad

That route has its own section in the Apostille edition.

The other kind of background check: does this person exist?

Three quarters of this section’s readers arrive asking about online deception, not about federal records.

What none of it proves

An illustration of a certified federal record with a seal

No certification says the record is accurate

Authentication confirms the signature and the office. The contents of the entry are a separate matter.

Errors of product

Three orders that were placed, paid for, and rejected

The wrong paper

Ordering a state or local record when the FBI one was requested

A state check or a local police letter can be a perfectly valid document and still not be an FBI rap sheet. It cannot satisfy a request for one.

The stale record

A summary that was accurate last year

An employer, consulate or immigration authority may impose a recency period on the underlying FBI record, independently of any certification attached to it.

The assumption of accuracy

Treating the certification as a guarantee of contents

None of the certification routes certifies that every entry in the FBI record is accurate. Federal law lets an individual obtain the summary precisely in order to review, correct or update it.

The five names

Three mean the same document. Two mean something else

Identity History Summary

The formal name of the document the FBI issues. If a checklist uses this phrase, there is no ambiguity about what is being asked for — and it is the name to order under.

The one to order under

Rap sheet · FBI background check

Two informal names for the same document. They sound like different products because one is slang and the other is descriptive, but they resolve to the Identity History Summary.

Same paper, other words

Police certificate · state records

These are not the same thing. A national police certificate, state records or local police letters are separate documents, and a checklist may ask for them instead of, or alongside, the federal one.

Different papers entirely

The record

Ordering it, and reading it

The document’s real name

The equivalences table, and what «apostilled» adds to a rap sheet.

From fingerprints to the report

How the prints and identifying data produce the FBI’s response.

Expediting it, without shortcuts that fail

What actually shortens the wait, and what only appears to.

The person

When the question is who, not what

Why it is called catfishing

Where the word comes from, and the checks that establish whether a profile belongs to a real person.

Catfish dating, and how to stop it

The pattern of an online romance scam, and how a due-diligence check interrupts it.

When the paper has to be used abroad

The apostille route lives in its own section of the Apostille edition.

The file

Four things this section settles

Document, three names

Identity History Summary, rap sheet and FBI background check all resolve to the same federal record.

Certifications of accuracy

No authentication route certifies that every entry in the record is correct.

R.A.P.

Where the slang comes from

Record of Arrests and Prosecutions, which is why the informal name sounds unofficial.

You

Who may request it

Federal law lets an individual obtain their own summary in order to review, correct or update it.

Compliance Officers

The right record, ordered under the right name

Compliance Officers obtains the FBI Identity History Summary and the police clearance certificate, and prepares the identity documentation each request requires. Bring the checklist you were handed: it decides which of these you actually need.

FBI identity history summary

Police clearance certificate

Elsewhere in Background Checks

The neighbouring sections of this edition

FOIA Requests

Anti-Money Laundering

Due Diligence Services

BOI & FinCEN Reporting

All of Background Checks

All guides

The full list of the section, always up to date

Background & Criminal Records

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