Please Note: The material on this website is provided for informational purposes only. It is not a consumer reporting agency as defined by The Fair Credit Reporting Act and should not be used to determine an individual's eligibility for personal credit or employment, or to assess risk associated with any business transactions such as tenant screening.

What are criminal records? These are records containing information on a person’s criminal history and are made use of by banks, lenders and potential employers in order to assess if the person is trustworthy or not. Criminal record information can vary from one country to another as well as vary between jurisdictions within a specified country. These types of records include traffic offenses, non expunged criminal offenses and drunk driving.

Criminal records are limited to actual convictions in some countries such as where the person has been declared guilty of a charge by the court or has pleaded guilty. Some records also include charges pending where the person has been acquitted as well as arrests and charges dismissed. In many instances such a policy has been termed discriminatory with regards to human rights violation especially when it comes to unproven allegations.

For instance in Canada since 1972 the Criminal Records Information Management Services store all the criminal records and the database is operated by the RCMP supervised under the CPIC. These records contain charges and warrants that are outstanding, judicial orders, convictions whereby pardon was not granted, charges and other information that may be of interest to investigators.

A Criminal record falls under two categories such as vulnerable and standard sector. The vulnerable sector deals with persons under the age of 18 and is defined under the Criminal Records Act as minor. Person’s who are under age are hence dependent on another or due to them being under age poses a risk of them being harmed by the authorities or trust person. Standard criminal record checks fall under four different levels.

Level one for instance is the most basic and four is the most extensive. The consent of the individual is needed in order to conduct a criminal record check on them. Only the police agencies, Solicitor General and BC Ministry of Public Safety may conduct a criminal record check due to the sensitivity of the CPIC. Level one retains records of criminal convictions whereby pardon was not granted.

Level two retains level one plus outstanding charges that the police are fully aware of and level three retains level two plus records of discharges and all charges and level four retains level three plus all criminal records and police records. Level four is included in a vulnerable sector screening and includes pardoned convictions and sexual offenses. If sexual offenses are matched the finder prints are required for confirmation.