7 ms·

Show HN: Checkr.io – API for background checks

79 points by dyanisse 12y ago

dyanisse 12y ago
My friend and I hacked an API to run background checks. We wanted to show it to the HN community and get your feedback on it. You can run 1 background check on yourself for free.
- p8952 12y ago
  Seems to require a SSN, so I assume it's only good in the US?
  - dyanisse 12y ago
    Yes, only in the US for now.
- afarrell 12y ago
  If you decide to run this service for longer than a demo, you should think long and hard about its social implications. You aren't building the Therac-25, but this sort of thing does definitely have the capability to deeply screw people over. Be careful. Be thoughtful.
nycmattw 12y ago
I'm probably not the only one but I'd feel uncomfortable putting my SSN in a site that just released.
kbar13 12y ago
Without knowing too much about this project (which looks pretty cool), I don't think it's a good idea to put in your SSN.
integraton 12y ago
What are the exact sources of some of this data, like SSN validation, address history, criminal searches, motor vehicle reports?
- mhluongo 12y ago
  I'd like to know this as well- I was doing some research into it recently for KYC purposes.
  - dyanisse 12y ago
    Hi, The sources are the 3 credit bureaus for SSN, direct access to DMVs for MVR, and different databases and sources for criminal data.
phillmv 12y ago
Talk about a great way to phish any unsuspecting saps who might try out the service. Also, I'm vaguely horrified at the notion that background checks might become standard even for 'sharing economy' gigs. Ah, well, you see, your pot charge disqualifies you from picking up my laundry.
- timjahn 12y ago
  Would you ever want a stranger driving you home who wasn't background checked in some way? I wouldn't.
  - phillmv 12y ago
    I have the privilege of being a white male who lives in a safe city and thus rarely feels threatened. So, it's not something I think about. What's the threat model? They're going to case your house and rob you at some point in the future? In an ideal world, that sounds plausible. Let's keep child molesters away from child care! Who can disagree with that? But in practice, it means that all offenders are permanent second class citizens barred from non-marginal employment opportunities. It's extremely pernicious, and you don't have to exaggerate anything to reach slippery slopes. Because there is no discretion in the system, anyone remotely tagged by law enforcement can be screwed by this. Recently here in Canada it turns out that non-offense data was turning up in background checks. So, some guy was in the process of becoming a nurse, iirc, but was not allowed to graduate - because his neighbour five years ago was a drug dealer. That's it. The background check revealed that he was asked some questions and that's that. Four years of tuition down the drain. If you can never find a way to reasonably support yourself, regardless of how much you've turned your life around, then we've created a self fulfilling prophesy in terms of recidivism rates. Keep in mind we're talking about the sharing economy, which almost by definition are going to be bottom of the barrel 'gigs' to begin with. Does it matter if person folding your laundry got into a drunken fight when they were 19? Not really.
    - timjahn 12y ago
      "Does it matter if person folding your laundry got into a drunken fight when they were 19? Not really." No. It doesn't. Does it matter if a person with a history of DUIs (or even ONE) drives me for Lyft? Yes. Does it matter if a person with a history of armed robbery or home invasion delivers groceries to my house for Instacart? Yes.
ctz 12y ago
s/mininum/minimum/ on the signup page.
markbnj 12y ago
Interesting idea, but like the others I have to say there is no way I am entering my SSN into your site. I'm half convinced the fear is irrational, but there it is.
spektom 12y ago
You probably should have mentioned that the service is available only in the US.
- danielsamuels 12y ago
  Would be nice to be able to delete your account once you've registered and found out that's the case.
deleted 12y ago
[deleted]
nulagrithom 12y ago
The fear of the SSN input in the comments is interesting. That was my knee-jerk reaction as well. I'm not saying the fear is unwarranted, but do you know where your employer is inputting your SSN and where they keep it? How safe do you think your personal data is? I built an employment application 'web app' for a job not too long ago. It was terrible, and against all my objections, we ended up asking for the applicants SSN. It certainly wasn't secure by any stretch of the imagination, and I cringe a little every time I see an application come in. I'm sure this sort of thing happens daily. Anyway, I went ahead and put my SSN in to Checkr. It came up with an address I've never lived at, next to 3 addresses I actually have lived at. Not sure what that's about.
- koryteg 12y ago
  if OP open sourced the code I would feel more comfortable about it. its weird that the first thought of hesitation was "that's weird they didn't do any customization to bootstrap" then this: http://builtwith.com/?https%3a%2f%2fcheckr.io%2f http://builtwith.com/?https%3a%2f%2fcheckr.io%2f I dont see any backend language or framework. what does this mean?
  - dyanisse 12y ago
    bultwith.com just scans web pages and guesses front-end libraries. We use Ruby/Sinatra/MySQL/MongoDB/IronMQ for the back-end.
  - danneu 12y ago
    It simply means there's no obvious fingerprint that builtwith.com was able to detect. For example, the default Express app contains `X-Powered-By: Express` in the response header. Ruby on Rails is usually sniffed by its predictable cookie signature. You gain nothing from broadcasting your back-end stack to the world.
- pbreit 12y ago
  I would have a _lot_ more trust in my employer than some random, anonymous web site on HN. Even if I might think my employer would screw it up.
aioprisan 12y ago
Also, why does the GitHub login require full access to personal user data? "This application will be able to read and write all user data. This includes the following: Private email addresses Profile information Followers"
scolson 12y ago
Like someone else pointed out, it would be ideal to be able to delete reports (or at a minimum ssn information). The site looks nice and clean. After running a report on myself, I noticed it said for a minute or so that my ssn was incorrect before it changed to stating it was cleared. Also, while the national check for me came back clear (as expected), I was curious if that was literally all the report said. I would love to see more detailed reporting underlying the results. Obviously if it doesn't say anything more than "clear" or "no results" or something, then this probably wouldn't be useful. Pricing-wise, I think it is somewhat fair and were I a bigger company with an HR group, you would be a solid candidate as a vendor.
- dyanisse 12y ago
  please email daniel at checkr.io and we will delete your SSN and personal data. This is a light version of a background check (since we have to pay for it). Our pricing page references packages with extensive screenings and results.
  - scolson 12y ago
    Isn't the point of the test to get exactly what I can expect as a result as a paying customer? Otherwise, what am I really validating? I will happily email daniel for deleting the personal data. While that works well for a HN comment thread, I still think it shouldn't require interaction on your part.
    - dyanisse 12y ago
      thanks for your feedback, we will add the ability to delete an account and all related data in our product.
- scolson 12y ago
  As a follow-up, is your privacy policy industry consistent? For a group disclaiming any warranty over storage of personal information, it seems that much more vital that customers would have a way to manually delete and/or auto-purge the records so that we can minimize risk.
_wmd 12y ago
This is a genuinely hard problem and it's great to see new companies taking it on. Unfortunately this particular instance is close to useless - US only is a non starter, it's why this stuff is hard in the first place. Dealing with country-specific services is as good as aggregating relevant databases directly. I'd pay good money for a single API that covered most of the western world, and seamlessly integrated external services (e.g. Equifax in the UK)
- apierre 12y ago
  I agree with you but I am wondering how would that work on a country specific level. Each country in Europe has their own privacy laws when it comes to query these kind of databases. Not to mention the EU adding another layer in the process. Take for instance the credit scoring system. There is no such thing as Expedia or privately maintained credit scoring system outside the UK. In France, the Bank of France maintains files which are only available to financial institutions holding a licence. Another example, in the UK, the sex offenders register is only available through the police, in other countries, there have been citizen initiatives to create such database for specific areas. This kind of service is more realistic in the US as their SSN is the main ID for background check.
binaryorganic 12y ago
Previous address history was pretty rough (it listed the same address twice as consecutive residences, put me in a city I'd never lived in, and got most of the dates wrong). That being said, I'm into it. Those arguing about it's usefulness seem either oblivious to, or annoyed by, the vast number of background checks that are run in this country every day.
twodayslate 12y ago
Not as instant as I would have hoped. I've been pending for a few minutes now
SimpleXYZ 12y ago
So the premium TASKER plan is $25 once for unlimited requests?
- bmelton 12y ago
  Unlimited counties, not requests. I assume that would be limited to one request per county.
  - dyanisse 12y ago
    Sorry if this is not clear on the pricing page. We will make updates. The pricing is for 1 report on 1 person. Unlimited county searches in the counties where the person lived in the last 7 years.
cridenour 12y ago
I prefer the reverse of this - [1]Repp. You confirm your own background and provide it to companies. [1] https://myrepp.com/ https://myrepp.com/
- fiatjaf 12y ago
  I love the idea. Always thought about it. Is this working? Is there anyone using it?
  - cridenour 12y ago
    I believe so! I haven't talked with them for a while but I believe they are still growing.
idbehold 12y ago
Anyone know what tool they use to generate their API docs?
- deleted 12y ago
  [deleted]
sprite 12y ago
I just ran one on myself. Turnaround time was 2 hours. It came up with a ticket I got in 2009 for "Motor Vehicle Noise". I've had several speeding tickets that didn't show up, so not sure how much I would trust the data from this.
mrvladnov 12y ago
This is great API, added it to the Mashape community for easy consumption ;)
jacobsimon 12y ago
I filed a report earlier this morning on myself with an incorrect SSN (off by one digit). It came through with a 'clear' on SSN verification and background check, but reported incorrect addresses. I think you guys should look into this.

79 points by dyanisse 12y ago

My friend and I hacked an API to run background checks. We wanted to show it to the HN community and get your feedback on it. You can run 1 background check on yourself for free.

p8952 12y ago
Seems to require a SSN, so I assume it's only good in the US?
- dyanisse 12y ago
  Yes, only in the US for now.
afarrell 12y ago
If you decide to run this service for longer than a demo, you should think long and hard about its social implications. You aren't building the Therac-25, but this sort of thing does definitely have the capability to deeply screw people over. Be careful. Be thoughtful.

nycmattw 12y ago

I'm probably not the only one but I'd feel uncomfortable putting my SSN in a site that just released.

kbar13 12y ago

Without knowing too much about this project (which looks pretty cool), I don't think it's a good idea to put in your SSN.

integraton 12y ago

What are the exact sources of some of this data, like SSN validation, address history, criminal searches, motor vehicle reports?

mhluongo 12y ago
I'd like to know this as well- I was doing some research into it recently for KYC purposes.
- dyanisse 12y ago
  Hi, The sources are the 3 credit bureaus for SSN, direct access to DMVs for MVR, and different databases and sources for criminal data.

phillmv 12y ago

Talk about a great way to phish any unsuspecting saps who might try out the service. Also, I'm vaguely horrified at the notion that background checks might become standard even for 'sharing economy' gigs. Ah, well, you see, your pot charge disqualifies you from picking up my laundry.

timjahn 12y ago
Would you ever want a stranger driving you home who wasn't background checked in some way? I wouldn't.
- phillmv 12y ago
  I have the privilege of being a white male who lives in a safe city and thus rarely feels threatened. So, it's not something I think about. What's the threat model? They're going to case your house and rob you at some point in the future? In an ideal world, that sounds plausible. Let's keep child molesters away from child care! Who can disagree with that? But in practice, it means that all offenders are permanent second class citizens barred from non-marginal employment opportunities. It's extremely pernicious, and you don't have to exaggerate anything to reach slippery slopes. Because there is no discretion in the system, anyone remotely tagged by law enforcement can be screwed by this. Recently here in Canada it turns out that non-offense data was turning up in background checks. So, some guy was in the process of becoming a nurse, iirc, but was not allowed to graduate - because his neighbour five years ago was a drug dealer. That's it. The background check revealed that he was asked some questions and that's that. Four years of tuition down the drain. If you can never find a way to reasonably support yourself, regardless of how much you've turned your life around, then we've created a self fulfilling prophesy in terms of recidivism rates. Keep in mind we're talking about the sharing economy, which almost by definition are going to be bottom of the barrel 'gigs' to begin with. Does it matter if person folding your laundry got into a drunken fight when they were 19? Not really.
  - timjahn 12y ago
    "Does it matter if person folding your laundry got into a drunken fight when they were 19? Not really." No. It doesn't. Does it matter if a person with a history of DUIs (or even ONE) drives me for Lyft? Yes. Does it matter if a person with a history of armed robbery or home invasion delivers groceries to my house for Instacart? Yes.

ctz 12y ago

s/mininum/minimum/ on the signup page.

markbnj 12y ago

Interesting idea, but like the others I have to say there is no way I am entering my SSN into your site. I'm half convinced the fear is irrational, but there it is.

spektom 12y ago

You probably should have mentioned that the service is available only in the US.

danielsamuels 12y ago
Would be nice to be able to delete your account once you've registered and found out that's the case.

deleted 12y ago

[deleted]

nulagrithom 12y ago

The fear of the SSN input in the comments is interesting. That was my knee-jerk reaction as well. I'm not saying the fear is unwarranted, but do you know where your employer is inputting your SSN and where they keep it? How safe do you think your personal data is? I built an employment application 'web app' for a job not too long ago. It was terrible, and against all my objections, we ended up asking for the applicants SSN. It certainly wasn't secure by any stretch of the imagination, and I cringe a little every time I see an application come in. I'm sure this sort of thing happens daily. Anyway, I went ahead and put my SSN in to Checkr. It came up with an address I've never lived at, next to 3 addresses I actually have lived at. Not sure what that's about.

koryteg 12y ago
if OP open sourced the code I would feel more comfortable about it. its weird that the first thought of hesitation was "that's weird they didn't do any customization to bootstrap" then this: http://builtwith.com/?https%3a%2f%2fcheckr.io%2f http://builtwith.com/?https%3a%2f%2fcheckr.io%2f I dont see any backend language or framework. what does this mean?
- dyanisse 12y ago
  bultwith.com just scans web pages and guesses front-end libraries. We use Ruby/Sinatra/MySQL/MongoDB/IronMQ for the back-end.
- danneu 12y ago
  It simply means there's no obvious fingerprint that builtwith.com was able to detect. For example, the default Express app contains `X-Powered-By: Express` in the response header. Ruby on Rails is usually sniffed by its predictable cookie signature. You gain nothing from broadcasting your back-end stack to the world.
pbreit 12y ago
I would have a _lot_ more trust in my employer than some random, anonymous web site on HN. Even if I might think my employer would screw it up.

aioprisan 12y ago

Also, why does the GitHub login require full access to personal user data? "This application will be able to read and write all user data. This includes the following: Private email addresses Profile information Followers"

scolson 12y ago

Like someone else pointed out, it would be ideal to be able to delete reports (or at a minimum ssn information). The site looks nice and clean. After running a report on myself, I noticed it said for a minute or so that my ssn was incorrect before it changed to stating it was cleared. Also, while the national check for me came back clear (as expected), I was curious if that was literally all the report said. I would love to see more detailed reporting underlying the results. Obviously if it doesn't say anything more than "clear" or "no results" or something, then this probably wouldn't be useful. Pricing-wise, I think it is somewhat fair and were I a bigger company with an HR group, you would be a solid candidate as a vendor.

dyanisse 12y ago
please email daniel at checkr.io and we will delete your SSN and personal data. This is a light version of a background check (since we have to pay for it). Our pricing page references packages with extensive screenings and results.
- scolson 12y ago
  Isn't the point of the test to get exactly what I can expect as a result as a paying customer? Otherwise, what am I really validating? I will happily email daniel for deleting the personal data. While that works well for a HN comment thread, I still think it shouldn't require interaction on your part.
  - dyanisse 12y ago
    thanks for your feedback, we will add the ability to delete an account and all related data in our product.
scolson 12y ago
As a follow-up, is your privacy policy industry consistent? For a group disclaiming any warranty over storage of personal information, it seems that much more vital that customers would have a way to manually delete and/or auto-purge the records so that we can minimize risk.

_wmd 12y ago

This is a genuinely hard problem and it's great to see new companies taking it on. Unfortunately this particular instance is close to useless - US only is a non starter, it's why this stuff is hard in the first place. Dealing with country-specific services is as good as aggregating relevant databases directly. I'd pay good money for a single API that covered most of the western world, and seamlessly integrated external services (e.g. Equifax in the UK)

apierre 12y ago
I agree with you but I am wondering how would that work on a country specific level. Each country in Europe has their own privacy laws when it comes to query these kind of databases. Not to mention the EU adding another layer in the process. Take for instance the credit scoring system. There is no such thing as Expedia or privately maintained credit scoring system outside the UK. In France, the Bank of France maintains files which are only available to financial institutions holding a licence. Another example, in the UK, the sex offenders register is only available through the police, in other countries, there have been citizen initiatives to create such database for specific areas. This kind of service is more realistic in the US as their SSN is the main ID for background check.

binaryorganic 12y ago

Previous address history was pretty rough (it listed the same address twice as consecutive residences, put me in a city I'd never lived in, and got most of the dates wrong). That being said, I'm into it. Those arguing about it's usefulness seem either oblivious to, or annoyed by, the vast number of background checks that are run in this country every day.

twodayslate 12y ago

Not as instant as I would have hoped. I've been pending for a few minutes now

SimpleXYZ 12y ago

So the premium TASKER plan is $25 once for unlimited requests?

bmelton 12y ago
Unlimited counties, not requests. I assume that would be limited to one request per county.
- dyanisse 12y ago
  Sorry if this is not clear on the pricing page. We will make updates. The pricing is for 1 report on 1 person. Unlimited county searches in the counties where the person lived in the last 7 years.

cridenour 12y ago

I prefer the reverse of this - [1]Repp. You confirm your own background and provide it to companies. [1] https://myrepp.com/ https://myrepp.com/

fiatjaf 12y ago
I love the idea. Always thought about it. Is this working? Is there anyone using it?
- cridenour 12y ago
  I believe so! I haven't talked with them for a while but I believe they are still growing.

idbehold 12y ago

Anyone know what tool they use to generate their API docs?

deleted 12y ago
[deleted]

sprite 12y ago

I just ran one on myself. Turnaround time was 2 hours. It came up with a ticket I got in 2009 for "Motor Vehicle Noise". I've had several speeding tickets that didn't show up, so not sure how much I would trust the data from this.

mrvladnov 12y ago

This is great API, added it to the Mashape community for easy consumption ;)

jacobsimon 12y ago

I filed a report earlier this morning on myself with an incorrect SSN (off by one digit). It came through with a 'clear' on SSN verification and background check, but reported incorrect addresses. I think you guys should look into this.