In recent news, the State of Ohio has partnered with the Bureau of Motor Vehicles to provide them with a fingerprint scanning machine for background checks.  This new initiative allowed Ohio BCI to receive a $300,000.00 grant from the federal government to train the local offices as well as provide the equipment.  While on the surface, this appears to be a great idea, there are many pitfalls with only utilizing a fingerprint scan as a background check.

Contrary to many beliefs, fingerprint searches are not 100% accurate.  In fact, they may only be up to 60% accurate.  In the state of Ohio, it is up to each individual city, town, village or county police department to submit their fingerprint records to Ohio BCI in London, Ohio.  This is common practice throughout the rest of the country as well.  What is not required is the court that adjudicates the arrest to submit their findings or data to Ohio BCI, thus leading to quite frequently only having the arrest entry and not the disposition data from the court.  The FCRA has provisions in it limiting the use of arrest records only and not obtaining a clear disposition of conviction from the court in question.

The best method of conducting a background check is to actually contact the county/city court directly to conduct a record search.  You will need the name and date of birth of each applicant to conduct this search.  There are many times that you will determine the presence of record by contacting the court, but the fingerprint BCI abstract comes back clean.

I agree with need for fingerprinting in certain instances, but that search should be coupled with a search of the court where the record is located.