Civil Records pertain to any case that has to do with a person or entity (including the government) wanting monetary, real estate or other assets that they feel are owed to them.

As in Criminal Records, Civil Records are segmented into different jurisdictions. Municipal, State and Federal.

Civil Registry Records are vital records that are recorded by the government such as; marriage records, divorce records, birth records, death records, adoption records and nationalization records. All of the civil registry records are recorded by the government as vital statistics. Although these vital records are public domain (except for juvenile and adoption records which are sealed), and should be available for look up by anyone, many times they are not.

Civil Record Searches for Pre and Post Employment
When an organization performs a background check, a review is usually made of both civil and criminal records. Each governmental unit determines which civil records to maintain and in what form those records will be made available to the public. Normally, civil records such as lawsuits and debt recordings or liens may be accessible. Civil records can provide additional background information about a prospective employee’s past behavior that may not appear when a search of his or her criminal records is conducted. It is important to note two things regarding Civil Record searches as they relate to Employment Screening process:

As in Federal Searches, the DDS Research Team will cross reference each name, case, date and case jurisdiction to determine if the applicant could have been in that jurisdiction duration the timeframe of the case. We will then eliminate names that don’t fit that criterion. Once the names list is narrowed down to a few, we will continue the investigation through other methods to determine if the name and the applicant are a match. If we cannot confirm an identity match, we will indicate that on the report.