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    Wisconsin Lawyer
    March 01, 2004

    Technology

    Conducting research on individuals can be as easy as a few keystrokes when you use the Internet. Here are a few resources to get you started.

    Carol Bannen

    Wisconsin Lawyer
    Vol. 77, No. 3, March 2004

    Researching Individuals on the Internet

    Conducting research on individuals can be as easy as a few keystrokes when you use the Internet. Here are a few resources to get you started.

    Carol BannenCarol Bannen is director of information resources at Reinhart, Boerner, Van Deuren S.C., Milwaukee. She is a member of the board of directors of the Law Librarians Association of Wisconsin, and heads its project providing a series of articles on conducting efficient, effective research. Bannen is a frequent speaker to groups of legal practitioners and researchers.

    by Carol Bannen

    There are many ways to research individuals on the Internet, depending on what you need. Attorneys often ask law librarians for "everything you can find" on a person. Searching the Web with search engines like Google may net you information including resumés, personal postings, and more, but this directive often has to be narrowed down in the reference interview. A search may be done more efficiently by determining what the lawyer actually needs. Is the lawyer trying to locate a missing heir? Does she need background information before visiting a potential client? Is he wondering about potential assets? These questions and many more can be answered by using some of the following resources.

    Locating People

    There is an excellent list of sites for people research at the Virtual Chase, located at . There are six parts: 1) public records, 2) reverse lookup, 3) white pages, 4) email directories, 5) international phone directories, and 6) reputable fee-based public information records searching resources. The Virtual Chase is an excellent resource created by law librarian Genie Tyburski. Another mega-site is Merlin Information Services, which offers an index of Web-based resources for investigative research. You can find sex offender databases, property records, professional licenses, vital records, campaign finance records, corporate records, and more at Merlin Information . Searchsystems.net, has links to more than 16,500 free public record databases from all states. BRB Publications has another great collection of public record sources.

    If you are looking for a home address or phone number, there are several sites to go to, including Switchboard and Anywho. An unlisted phone number probably will not be available. If you have a phone number and want to see who it belongs to, you can try a reverse look-up directory at reverse directory. Several search engines are collected here and both businesses and residences can be checked.

    The person for whom you are looking may be deceased. You can check the Social Security Administration's Death Index. The records are updated quarterly. Searches may be done by surname, first name, Social Security number, state issued by, city/state/county/zip of last known residence, or month/date/year of birth or death. Newspaper obituary searching also may be helpful, especially for more recent deaths. News Voyager links to newspapers from all 50 states. Vital Check has Information on how to get vital records from all 50 states. Information on how to look for or order birth, death, marriage, or divorce records is included. A similar site is the National Center for Health Statistics.

    Political Affiliations and Contributions

    It may be helpful to know a person's political party affiliation. Access Wisconsin state-level campaign contributions and you may search for contributions to all state candidates from an individual contributor or a specific employer or all contributors from a specific city. You also can see all contributions and expenditures by a particular candidate. Additional campaigns can be searched, including the Political Action Committee (PAC) contributions at the Center for Responsible Politics found. A collection of links to all 50 states is found at Gary Price's Web site.

    Criminal Records

    Checking an individual's criminal background can be difficult. The Wisconsin Department of Justice site has detailed information from 1971 to the present, including arrests, arrest charges, prosecutions, court fines and sentences, and state correctional system admissions and releases. It is an accumulation of information submitted by Wisconsin law enforcement agencies, prosecutors, courts, and the Wisconsin Department of Corrections (DOC) and may not be comprehensive. Requests are $13 each. You need the individual's first and last name and date of birth or Social Security number to do a search. The DOC has an Online Sex Offender Registry at that lists the state's sex offenders by name and location. The Wisconsin Circuit Court Automation Program (CCAP) has Wisconsin circuit court records for all counties except Walworth. Portage County shows only probate cases and Milwaukee is in the process of adding its probate cases. The dates when each county began adding records to CCAP are different, so be wary. This used to be a great way to find date of birth and driver's license information, but these have been removed for privacy reasons.

    The next step in a criminal background check is to search the federal courts for criminal records. Dockets of federal district and bankruptcy courts can be searched with PACER. Although a subscription is required, searching PACER is very affordable at $.07 per page viewed. PACER's U.S. Party/Case Index offers an index of cases filed in federal courts that allows multiple courts to be searched by name. Unfortunately, you cannot do a nationwide search here because the Index does not contain data from all the courts. Check the list of courts covered. The Seventh Circuit Court of Appeals has to be searched separately. Dockets can be searched for the Wisconsin Supreme Court and Wisconsin Court of Appeals. The Federal Bureau of Investigation has a Prison Inmate Locator that allows you to locate federal inmates currently incarcerated as well as inmates released from 1982 to the present.

    No one, except perhaps the Department of Homeland Security, can do a complete criminal records search. Many of the companies on the Internet say they can, but read the fine print. For a great summary of criminal records available nationwide on the Internet, see "Navigating the Maze of Criminal Records Retrieval". Although a little dated, it has great advice on how to find criminal records. Another good resource is The Virtual Chase on Criminal Records.

    Asset Searching

    There are many places to check a person's assets. SearchSystems.net, mentioned earlier, has one of the best public record collections with more than 16,500 links to state databases. This Web site will link you to real estate records as well as records for aircraft, boats, cars, and other registered assets. Netroline has links to a variety of property databases. Some information costs a small fee, but much of it is free. Carfax allows you to search the history of a car for $14.99 and includes the owner's last known residence. Portico-Personal Property Online has an index to sources of property record data nationwide and in Canada. It includes real estate, boats, aircraft, and horses.

    Wisconsin allows UCC liens to be searched. You may access records by debtor name, debtor organization, or filing number. For other states use the links mentioned above.

    Corporate Affiliations

    The person you are investigating may be affiliated with a corporation. You can search the Wisconsin Department of Financial Institutions CRIS database. Although listings of officers and directors are not provided, names of registered agents are listed. Similar databases can be found for other states with some listing officers and directors. LLRX links all of these. Lexis and Westlaw offer global searching of these databases for a fee; however, the Delaware information has to be searched separately in both. Dun and Bradstreet credit reports for a company are a good way to get background information on the principals of a company. Instead of paying for the whole credit report, you can get just get the history and operations sections that detail this information. If the company is publicly held, the EDGAR database of the Securities and Exchange Commission has annual report and proxy information detailing compensation and other background information on officers and directors.

    Personal Credit Checks

    Regardless of what many sites on the Internet say, personal credit checks cannot be done legally without Fair Credit Reporting Act compliance. You must have a legitimate business reason to access the information. Some of these reasons include employment checks, extension of credit, underwriting of insurance, or use in connection with a civil, criminal, administrative, or arbitral proceeding that involves liability for a commercial obligation deriving from a business transaction.

    Fee-based Databases

    Fee-based databases can offer quick and concise searching. One of my favorites is Accurint. For less than $10 you can check personal names, aliases, Social Security numbers, current and historical addresses (going back to up to 30 years ago), telephone numbers, month and year of birth, names of those living at the current address, property ownership, names of relatives (up to three degrees of separation), neighbors, death information, UCC search, and corporate affiliations. It is currently adding criminal and bankruptcy information. An account has to be set up and you have to verify the reason you are searching for the information.

    There are other databases in the business of researching individuals for a fee, including Lexis and Westlaw. AutotrackXP is one of the least expensive. KnowX at (formerly Information America) caters to consumers and has a variety of locator and research tools with an easy interface. For an excellent summary of these go to The Virtual Chase.

    These are but a few of the wide variety of resources available for searching for personal information. You never know "who's looking for you, kid" and where.


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