Perils of Bad Data...and Why Good Investigators Double-Check Everything

A very interesting - and cautionary - article from Baseline Magazine for public record database afficionados, such as The Daily Caveat. Here's the tease:

Choicepoint: Blur

By Deborah Gage
and John McCormick
June 14, 2005

Steven Calderon was into his second week working as a security guard for Fry's Electronics when Anaheim, Calif., police walked in and arrested him. Fry's had requested a background check on Calderon, which was done by The Screening Network, a service of ChoicePoint. Calderon spent the next week in jail. No one stopped to question—or verify—whether the background check was accurate in the first place. It wasn't.

The full article appears here and it is essential reading for anyone who has ever entrusted employee background checks or due dilligence research to an automated service, rather than real live investigators.

-- MDT