Executives and board members
Senior hires, non-executive directors and advisers whose past roles, companies and disputes will become your reputation.
Employee screening →OSINT Background Check Services
An OSINT background check shows you who a person is in the public record before you appoint, invest, lend or sign: their career, their companies, their disputes, their media coverage and their online footprint. Every material finding is verified and sourced.
- Executives and board candidates
- Partners, founders and counterparties
- Landlords and commercial tenants
- Focused checks from 10 business days
Short answer
An OSINT background check verifies a named individual using open and commercially available sources: corporate registries, court and insolvency records, regulatory notices, sanctions lists, media archives and online profiles. It confirms what the person told you, finds what they did not, and separates the same name from the same person. OSINT-S delivers focused checks from 10 business days, after a fixed quote.
Who Needs an OSINT Background Check?
Anyone about to give a person money, authority, access or their name. The check is sized to the decision: a supplier's director needs less than a new CEO.
Partners, founders and investors
Co-founders, joint-venture partners, new shareholders and the people behind a fund or a buyer.
Directors of suppliers and agents
The individuals who own or run a third party, often checked alongside the company itself.
Due diligence →Landlords and commercial tenants
Whether a landlord owns what they are leasing, and whether the people behind a business tenant have a record of unpaid debts or disputes.
Borrowers and guarantors
Principals of a borrowing company, personal guarantors and their other business interests.
Financial services →Opponents and witnesses
Background on the other side of a dispute, expert witnesses and key individuals in litigation.
For law firms →Database Check or OSINT Background Check?
A database check matches a name against lists. An OSINT background check reads the records behind the name, in every country the person has lived and worked, and tells you what they mean.
| Automated database check | OSINT background check | |
|---|---|---|
| Method | Name and date of birth matched against criminal, credit, sanctions or watchlist data | An analyst works through registries, court files, media and online sources, then verifies each finding |
| Geography | Usually limited to the countries the vendor covers | Follows the person's actual career, country by country |
| Companies | Rarely shows directorships or shareholdings | Maps current and past companies, including dissolved ones and insolvent ones |
| Context | A hit or no hit | What happened, when, how it ended, and whether it matters for your decision |
| Same-name risk | False positives and missed matches are common with thin identifiers | Identity confirmed with several independent data points before anything is reported |
The two work best together. Run the database check first; commission an OSINT background check when the subject is senior, has worked abroad, or the database result raises a question it cannot answer.
What Our Background Checks Cover
Six areas, each answered from records you could check yourself, using professional background verification methods rather than a single search engine.
Identity and aliases
Names, former names, transliterations and dates that tie the records to one person and rule out namesakes.
Career and education claims
Whether the employers, titles, dates and degrees on the CV are consistent with public records and the institutions themselves.
Directorships and shareholdings
Current and past companies, failed ventures, insolvencies and undisclosed business interests.
Company investigations →Litigation and regulatory history
Civil cases, judgments, bankruptcy, disqualification and regulatory actions, where courts and regulators publish them.
Sanctions, PEP and adverse media
Sanctions designations, political exposure and negative coverage in national and trade media.
KYC and AML →Public online footprint
Public posts, profiles and statements that bear on the decision, reviewed in proportion to it.
Social media investigations →How a Background Check Is Run
Five steps, from a written purpose to a report reviewed by a senior analyst.
- Agree the purpose and scopeYou tell us who the person is, what you are deciding and by when. We confirm the purpose is lawful, check whether the FCRA or data-protection rules shape the work, and send a fixed quote.
- Confirm identityWe fix the person's identifiers, such as full name, former names, date of birth and known addresses or employers, so every later record can be matched to the right individual.
- Collect from primary recordsRegistries, court and insolvency files, regulatory notices, sanctions lists, media archives and public online sources in each relevant country.
- Verify and weighEach material finding is tested against an independent record. Allegations are reported as allegations, with their outcome where it is known.
- Report and reviewA senior analyst reviews the report before you receive it, with the sources and captures behind every finding.
What You Receive and How Long It Takes
A short report that puts the answer first, then the evidence. Focused checks take from 10 business days; complex, multi-country subjects up to about a month.
- Summary. What was confirmed, what was not, and any issue that could affect your decision.
- Findings with sources. Each statement with its source, the date it was observed and our confidence in it.
- Company map. The person's companies and roles over time, where that matters.
- Gaps. Records that could not be reached from open sources, and lawful ways to close them.
Every check is quoted at a fixed fee after written scoping. Urgent delivery is possible for a 50% surcharge, and if we miss the date we agreed, the fee goes down. Reports are confidential and can be covered by an NDA.
FCRA, GDPR and UK GDPR: The Legal Limits
The law depends on why you want the check, not where the information came from. Employment, credit, housing and insurance decisions in the US bring in the FCRA; in Europe and the UK, data-protection law applies to every check.
- FCRA in the US. A background report on an individual used for employment, credit, insurance or housing decisions is a consumer report, and the FTC has said the same rules apply when the report draws on social media (FTC). In 2012 Spokeo paid $800,000 to settle FTC charges that it marketed profiles compiled from online and offline sources, including social networks, to recruiters without following the FCRA (FTC). If your check is for a hiring decision, see employee screening, where consent and adverse-action steps are built in.
- Seven-year limits. Under the FCRA, most adverse items older than seven years cannot appear in a consumer report, although convictions can and the limits do not apply to jobs paying $75,000 a year or more (15 U.S.C. §1681c).
- GDPR and UK GDPR. A check needs a lawful basis, usually legitimate interests with a documented balancing test (EDPB). Information about offenses, including unproven allegations, is criminal offense data and needs an extra legal condition; in the UK, only official authorities may keep a comprehensive register of convictions (ICO).
We flag these points at scoping. This is a summary, not legal advice; your counsel should confirm your position.
What We Will Not Do in a Background Check
We do not check people for personal reasons, reach into private accounts or data, or help anyone bypass the FCRA.
- No checks on partners, ex-partners, dates, relatives or neighbors, and no locating people without a lawful business or legal purpose.
- No hacking, password guessing, fake profiles to see private content, pretexting, or buying leaked or stolen data.
- No residential tenant screening or US hiring reports outside the FCRA process.
- No profiling of health, religion, sexuality, politics or union membership unless the law and the purpose specifically require it.
- No research on journalists, activists or whistleblowers to retaliate against them.
If the answer you need sits in private data, such as bank statements or phone records, we say so at scoping and point to the lawful route, usually a court order. A check on a company rather than a person belongs in a broader review; our wider OSINT services cover that too.
OSINT Background Checks: Specialized Services
Focused versions of background checks for specific subjects, deals and situations.
Executive background checks
CEO, CFO and board candidates checked for directorships, failed companies, litigation, regulatory actions, conflicts and bio claims.
Read more →International background checks
Cross-border checks on people who lived and worked in several countries: records per country, name variants, foreign degrees and employers.
Read more →Business partner checks
Co-founders, joint-venture partners and new shareholders checked for past ventures, partner disputes, insolvency, sanctions and capital claims.
Read more →Send Us the Name and the Decision
Tell us who the person is, what you are deciding and your deadline. We reply with a scope, a delivery date and a fixed quote.
OSINT Background Check FAQ
We're bringing in a co-founder who says he built and sold two companies abroad — can an OSINT background check confirm those companies existed, what happened to them and whether he was ever sued?
Yes, in most countries. An OSINT background check starts with the corporate registries where the companies were incorporated, which show directors, shareholders, filings and dissolution. We then look for court cases, insolvency notices and media coverage of any sale. A focused check like this usually takes from 10 business days.
I already ran a standard criminal and credit database check on a potential business partner and it came back clean, so what would an OSINT background check add that the database missed?
Context and coverage. Database checks match a name against the records a vendor holds, mostly in a few countries, and return a hit or no hit. An OSINT background check reads the underlying records: directorships, failed companies, civil disputes, regulatory actions and media coverage, in every country the person has worked.
Our HR team in the US wants an outside firm to review a finalist's public social media and news coverage before we make an offer — does the FCRA apply to that, and what do we have to do first?
Very likely yes. The FTC treats a third-party report used for employment decisions as a consumer report even when it is built from social media. Before ordering it you need a stand-alone written disclosure and the candidate's written authorization, and before rejecting someone because of it you must follow the pre-adverse and adverse action steps. Our employee screening service is designed around that process.
Is there a free OSINT background check I can run myself with search engines and public registries before paying anyone, and at what point does it make sense to hand it to a professional analyst?
You can do a useful first pass for free: search the name with past employers, check the company registry and court records where they live, and read their professional profiles. Hand it over when the person has worked abroad, has a common name, owns companies through other companies, or when the decision is large enough that a missed record or a wrong match would be costly.
We're a UK company about to sign with a supplier, and I'd like to check the managing director personally under UK GDPR — can we do that without telling him, and what are we allowed to look at?
Usually yes, if the check is necessary for the contract decision and proportionate. You need a lawful basis, normally legitimate interests with a written balancing test, and the scope should stick to his business record: directorships, insolvency, litigation, sanctions and relevant media. Transparency rules still apply, though an exemption can apply where notice would seriously impair the purpose of the check. Criminal allegations need extra care under the UK rules.
My company is about to lease a warehouse from a landlord we found through an online listing and something feels off — can you check whether the landlord really owns the property and is who they claim to be?
Yes. We compare the land or property records with the landlord's identity and any company they use, and look for court cases, complaints or reused listing photos and contact details tied to the names. If the records do not match, we tell you before you pay a deposit. Small checks like this can sometimes be done in one business day.
I want to find out everything about my ex-partner's new boyfriend, including where he lives and who he talks to online — is that something your background check service will do for me?
No. We only run background checks for a lawful business or legal purpose, such as a hiring decision, an investment, a contract or litigation. We do not research partners, ex-partners or their new relationships, locate people for personal reasons, or monitor anyone's private communications. If you are worried about your safety, the police or a qualified family lawyer are the right first contact.
If your check turns up something serious, like an undisclosed bankruptcy, how can we be sure it belongs to the same person and not someone else with the same name?
We do not report a finding until it is tied to the subject by independent identifiers, such as date of birth, address history, a registered company or a unique role. Where the match is likely but not certain, the report says so and explains why, so you never decide on someone else's record.
Sources and Notes
- FTC: The Fair Credit Reporting Act and social media — what businesses should know (2011)
- FTC: Spokeo to pay $800,000 to settle FTC charges (2012)
- FTC: Using consumer reports — what employers need to know
- 15 U.S.C. §1681c: requirements relating to information contained in consumer reports
- EDPB Guidelines 1/2024 on legitimate interest
- ICO: Criminal offence data
Sources checked 7 October 2026. Figures about third-party firms and tools are as published by them or by the cited source on that date.