Background Checks
A structured process to validate the information provided by a candidate actually aligns with available records and to determine their employment and/or clearance eligibility. Correctly performed they prevent undue risks, but why is the general consensus that it feels like a checkbox with limited to no value?
Prae runs alongside your FCRA-compliant background check, not in place of it. In minutes, it confirms people are who they claim to be, surfaces fraud and threat indicators across physical, cyber, and psychological domains, and keeps watching for new exposure after the hire. Prae's findings are not used to decide anyone's eligibility for employment; that decision stays with your background check.
Contact UsA 2025 Benchmark Report cited non-compliance with regulations, costs of bad hire, financial loss thru criminal activities, brand reputation, and workplace safety & security as the top concerns amongst organizations across North America (U.S. & Canada), EMEA (Europe, Middle East, & Africa), and APAC (Asia-Pacific).
Common Challenges
Low Accuracy & Precison
More than three-quarters of businesses have found candidate discrepancies during the screening process in the last 12 months. Identity mix-up, incomplete and/or outdated records, and jurisdictional limitations impact the accuracy and precision of screening candidates.
High Volume, High Noise
An organization’s ability to sift through and filter the volume of information, noise, and false positives varies wildly. Background check companies neither summarize nor highlight red flags.
Untimely & Static
The turnaround time for a singular check is highly dependent upon the type of checks performed. Factors such as missing information, extensive work/living history, unresponsive references, and manual court searches further delay the turnaround. There is NO continuous monitoring.
Blind to Fraud
Fabricated histories, synthetic identities, and impersonation are built to pass a records search. A clean report does not mean the person is who they claim to be.
Our Differentiated Approach
Data Engineering
Our ability to ETL any data source or data record into our custom data schema and ontology models means better entity resolution, faster searches, and greater downstream analytics.
Entity Resolution
We deliver both high accuracy and confidence in resolving an identity. No more identity mix ups and false positives means better training data and risk models.
ML Risk Models
Current solutions only cover a single domain, but isn’t risk more complex and nuanced? We deliver data driven modeling of risk across physical, cybersecurity, and psychological domains.
More than a background check.
A Prae check doesn't end when the report is delivered. The same entity resolution, cross-domain risk models, and continuous monitoring that screen a candidate keep working after day one, so one platform carries you from hiring into protection.
Investigations
When an internal case opens, the subject's resolved identity and risk history are already on hand. Investigators start from a complete public-domain picture instead of building one from scratch.
Insider Threat
Continuous monitoring re-scores employees as their exposure changes. Leaked credentials, impersonation, exposed personal data, and public threats surface as signals well before they become incidents.
Human Resource Investigations
When HR opens an investigation into suspected misconduct, it gets a current, factual view of the employee's public exposure, with no intrusive endpoint tools and no access to sensitive HR data. Findings inform the investigation; any employment decision follows your FCRA and HR process.
Executive & VIP Overwatch
Applied to executives, board members, and key personnel, the same screening becomes overwatch: see what attackers see, watch it continuously, and shrink the exposure before it can be used.
Background check questions, answered
What is an enhanced background check?
An enhanced background check goes beyond validating what a candidate told you. Alongside records verification, Prae resolves the candidate's identity across publicly available information and grades their exposure across physical, cyber, and psychological domains, so you see risk that a records-only check cannot surface.
How is this different from a traditional background check?
Traditional screening is manual, one-dimensional, and point-in-time. Prae is automated, multi-domain, and continuous: results come back in minutes rather than days, and the risk picture keeps updating after the hire instead of freezing on the day the report was pulled.
Is Prae a consumer reporting agency?
No. Prae's work is defensive: it finds exposure, fraud, and threats in publicly available information so an organization can protect its people and itself. Prae is not a consumer reporting agency (CRA), it does not furnish consumer reports under the Fair Credit Reporting Act (FCRA), and its findings are not used to decide anyone's eligibility for employment, credit, insurance, or similar benefits.
Then where does Prae fit alongside an FCRA-compliant check?
Alongside it, not instead of it. Decisions about whether to hire, promote, or retain someone belong to a traditional background check from a consumer reporting agency, run under the FCRA with its disclosure, consent, and adverse action steps. Prae confirms people are who they claim to be, surfaces fraud and threat indicators a records-only check cannot see, and watches for new exposure after the hire.
How long does an enhanced background check take?
Minutes, not days. Prae works from publicly available information through an automated entity resolution and ETL pipeline, so results come back in minutes instead of the days a records search takes.
What does Prae need to run a check?
Enough to resolve the right person, such as a name with a location or an identifier like an email address. Prae works from publicly available information only, with no intrusive endpoint tools and no access to sensitive HR data.
Can you keep monitoring an employee after they are hired?
Yes. The same monitoring can keep running for insider threat protection and executive overwatch on executives, board members, and other key personnel, watching for leaked credentials, impersonation, exposed personal data, and public threats.
What data does Prae use to build a risk profile?
Publicly available information only: the open internet, social media, the dark web, and public databases. Prae measures and grades exposure rather than scrubbing or rewriting records, and reports surface real red flags instead of raw volume. See Our Technology for how the pipeline works.