The Electoral Register – not an Effective Identity Check

While taking a look at the websites of other employment screening firms it was interesting to see that some marketed a check against the Electoral Register as their Identity Check. Unfortunately for their customers a check against the Electoral Register is not an effective Identity Check – there a 2 key reasons for this:

1. Only the Edited Electoral Register can be used for the purpose of Employment Screening. Individuals have the right to opt-out of the edited register and many do so. Research by Leeds based credit reference agency Callcredit in January 2011 found that the overall average opt-out rate across the UK is 45%. Many local authority areas see significantly higher opt-out rates – South Gloucestershire (81.95%), Bromley (77.51%) and Epping Forest (76.49%)
2. No ID checks are made when compiling the Electoral Register. The primary purpose of the register is to compile an accurate register of voters and as such the checks and balances in place when the data is collected are to prevent electoral rather than identity fraud. No one from the local authority visits each property asking to see copies of passports for everyone in the household

Know Your Candidate provides its customers with electronic identity and address verification. The electronic approach has been around for over 10 years and is used by many industry sectors including financial services and the public sector to verify an individual’s identity. The electronic approach compares the data provided by the applicant against a whole range of data sources, public and private, held by credit references agencies to find evidence that the applicant’s identity exists and they live at the address they claim. This approach considers the number of data items (breadth), the due diligence in place when the database record was created (quality) and the length of time the data items cover (depth). Clearly, the greater number of data items with high degree of due diligence when they were created (e.g. credit accounts) then the greater amount of confidence the employer can have that their applicant is who they claim to be. Checks are also made against alias names and mortality databases. To find out more about Know Your Candidate’s Identity and Address Check click here.

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