The Gaps In Stored Data
Vendors that sell stored data purchase those data periodically from
the jurisdiction in question. The cost of purchasing databases from
counties and states is increasing as their tax revenues prove to be
insufficient, and they raise their prices. Therefore, it is
increasingly expensive for stored data
vendors, and hence they update their copies of the databases less
frequently. Look at their websites, and see update gaps that are
as long as three years !
This means that the time gap between the current state of the database
at the original source, and the copy that they have, is increasing --- and
the vendor's data are increasingly out of date.
The largest database vendor recently bragged that their driver's license
database is updated every 30 days. Federal law says that the report which
the employer receives must contain exactly what the source (eg: court, or DMV)
records contain on the date of the report. Therefore stored data delivered
today cannot be more than 24 hours old. And, the cost of doing things according
to Federal law is what keeps stored data
vendors from updating their databases each day, for each jurisdiction. Therefore,
stored data that may be involved in an adverse action is ILLEGAL.
But all of that also masks another really major problem. These time gaps average
three to 24 months long. An applicant could have been convicted of a serious crime
during the time gap since the last update of the vendor's
stored data --- and the unsuspecting employer would never know !
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