When International research is conducted by investigators at Check Fund Manager, there are different requirements for signed consent, depending on the country.
Typically, investigations in Hong Kong and Singapore require only a biography to conduct the investigation. However, ideally, we would like to know the following, (listed in descending order of importance):
Often an investigation can be conducted in China with just a biography. However, the lack of additional identifiers (specifically a national ID number and the spelling of the subject's name in Chinese characters) will increase the turnaround time of the investigation by as much as 2 to 4 weeks.
A signed release is not essential unless reference / employment checks are required.
Often a biography is sufficient information to conduct an investigation in Australia. If possible, we would like to have the subject's full name, date of birth, and associated company.
A signed release is only needed for CRO checks and obtaining these can prove very difficult and time consuming (many weeks). CRO checks are also at an additional cost (for full checks with fingerprints). Typically, we conduct our own CRO checks under the counter, so that the subject does not know about the inquiry.
Occasionally, Universities will demand a signed release before confirming education awards. Fortunately, 90% of Universities will confirm over the phone or e-mail without one.
Often a biography is sufficient information to conduct an investigation in Japan. It is very helpful to obtain the name of the subject in Kanji characters as well. On occasion, if identification is extremely difficult due to the commonality of the name, a date of birth or address might be requested by the investigator.
Education and employment checks in Japan can be rather problematic depending on the verifying entity. All entities will require a signed release at minimum. In addition some of the universities may require additional information such as a direct call from the subject, a copy of the subject's passport, the original of the release, a specifically worded release and we have even had cases where the university has requested that the ex-student appear in person. Lastly, there are some universities which will not provide any verifications to a third party and will only deal directly with the candidate. The process can involve a fair bit of going backwards and forwards between the applicant, the client, us and the university in order to fulfill the university's often over the top requirements.
CFM provides a simple consent form which will enable our investigators to obtain degree verifications. We can still conduct a background check without the signed consent, however, unless we had obtained it from a prior effort, the degree verification would not be present in the report. This is a requirement by most UK colleges and universities as well as our policy. Consent is also helpful (but not required) should you contract us to perform past employment verifications in the UK through our Deluxe Credentials Verification "Add-On". This "Add-On" is only available for US or UK based research. Visit our UK Investigations page for a full service description.
CFM does not require signed consent for manager investigations in the United States. The exceptions, i.e., we DO require consent when driving records or a credit report is requested. We also require consent when the investigation is being conducted for pre-employment or employment related purposes.
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