There are two factors that determine the effort, time and expense you should expend if you have discovered incorrect public record information.
- The type of information that is incorrect, and
- The type of error that has caused the information to be incorrect.
Types of Public Information
To review, the strict definition of public records is —
“Public records and criminal history reports maintained by government agencies that are open without restriction to public inspection, either by statute or by tradition.”
While public records are filed, recorded and stored by government agencies initially, it is important to note that much of this information is subsequently obtained by private companies and used to assemble various background check and criminal record reports.
And the effort you should expend to get information corrected depends on the degree to which the incorrect information will affect you – e.g., your ability to get a job or a loan. Much of the information in the public domain is demographic in nature: your phone number, your address and previous addresses. This type of information is notoriously inaccurate. Because of this and the fact that the information is not derogatory, it will not typically hurt you.
Other information, while not derogatory on its face, can negatively affect you depending on your situation. For example a hunting and fishing license is not a negative or derogatory piece of information. However, if you are applying for a job at People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals (PETA) and discover that you are erroneously listed as having a hunting license, you may choose to contact the state and have them correct their files. (47 states currently maintain a central repository of fishing and/or hunting license records and 30 states permit access in some capacity by the public.)
Civil records and judgments may not be derogatory on their face, but your circumstances, and the nature of the record may necessitate you taking the action to get the information corrected. Civil records and judgments can particularly affect eligibility for positions that involve fiduciary responsibility.
However, some of the most potentially damaging – and frequently erroneous – public information is infraction, misdemeanor, felony, incarceration and sexual offender records that are obtained from government agencies across the country and stored in public criminal record databases. This information is widely used, is always derogatory and you should address inaccuracies. How you address the inaccuracies depends on the nature of the inaccuracy. There are three main ways you can be hurt:
Three General Types of Errors
-The info does not pertain to you. The criminal history report may be accurate – in regard to someone else with your name and date of birth – but it is reported when someone inquires upon you. This is an identification error.
-Some or all of the criminal history report pertains to you but is inaccurate.
-The criminal records search may pertain to you, it may be accurate, but the error is that it should have never been reported. These circumstances may include juvenile records, arrest information older than 7 years that should not be reported or sealed or expunged records.
For errors 2 and 3 you should contact the original governmental source of the public criminal records – e.g., the county or state court or agency from which the information was obtained. These governmental bodies may report the information to multiple sources. You want to go upstream and stop the problem at its source.
For error-type one, you may contact the source, but you need to take another step: you need to go to the entity that provided the report to the employer or entity that used the criminal background investigation. What do you say? You should say something like “XYZ Employer requested a criminal check on me and you mistakenly sent them a report on someone else – who they now think is me and it is preventing me from getting a job.” At this point, they may order a court record on you or take other action – but make sure they take some action including (after they have done their fact finding) informing XYZ Employer that the public criminal record they reported was in error.
In fact, you should follow up your call with a certified letter or other means by which you can prove you contacted them. That letter should reference that it is a follow up to your telephone conversation of XX-XX-20XX. You should also make sure the reporting agency doesn’t just turn around and report the same error next week to ABC Employer in a different criminal records background check. Save the documentation you receive from the entity after the issue is resolved.
