Background checks on the rise, but do they work?
The Associated Press story, Background checks on the rise, takes a look at the dramatic increase in background checks starting with the federal government ones. Already this year, 25 million Americans have had background checks by the federal government, a number that's risen every year since the 9-11 terrorist attacks. Amid the rise, a notable shift has occurred: More civilians are now checked each year than criminals. And checks on the vast majority come back clean, even as states allot more money for their growing screening operations. The article is a hodge-podge with an agenda. The article skips from talking [...]
Security concerns don’t stop when you hire
CBS Channel 4 in Denver has broken a story about how people with criminal backgrounds including child abuse, assault, and theft wind up working on group homes around the state. Here's a substantive excerpt from their story. "A CBS4 investigation found many of the employees in the state's group homes have criminal records that might disqualify them from many lines of work, yet they are caring for the Colorado's most vulnerable population. The CBS4 probe turned up employees with arrests and convictions for domestic violence, assault, shoplifting and drug use." That's interesting, but it's not much different from a number [...]
Checking out the notaries
The Investigative Team at WBZ TV in Boston has turned up an interesting fact. It seems you can become a Notary Public in Massachusetts no matter what kind of background you've got. Nobody apparently reads the applications and there are no background checks, even if you admit to convictions for using false documents and writing bad checks. In case you've forgotten your civics, "a notary public is an officer who can administer oaths and statutory declarations, witness and authenticate documents and perform certain other acts depending on the jurisdiction." Here's what that means in most places in the US. Let's [...]
If we just check enough people
The Park, Beach and Recreation Commission in the city of Milford, CT is planning to require background checks for all coaches in the city's recreation programs. The Commission is drafting a revised processing procedure for new coaches. "'We hope whatever we give to City Attorney Marilyn Lipton is airtight,' commission Chairman Daniel Worroll said." If by "airtight" they mean "no evil doer will ever get through," then our friends in Milford are doomed to failure. There is no airtight. People fail to do what they're supposed to. They make mistakes. Some of them lie and get away with it. The [...]
Lessons from Choicepoint
Back in 2005, headlines around the country trumpeted the news that private information on 163,000 people had been stolen from Choicepoint, a data services company. Consumer concerns bout identity theft spiked and Choicepoint was held up as an example of everything that was wrong with data security. That was then. Today, the company has become what one expert from Gartner called "a role model for data security and privacy practices." Earlier this year, Daniel Lemecha, ChoicePoint's chief information officer and senior vice president spoke at the 2007 IDC IT Forum & Expo in Boston about what Choicepoint learned from its [...]
What’s your fraud risk?
One thing accountants do is look for possible fraud when they're auditing business's books. Recently the Journal of Accountancy published an excellent article on spotting fraud in your business. Here's the lead from that article. Every organization faces some risk of fraud from within. Fraud exposure can be classified into three broad categories: asset misappropriation, corruption and fraudulent financial statements. Answering the following 15 questions is a good starting point for sizing up a company’s vulnerability to fraud and creating an action plan for lessening the risks. The questions are based on information from the 2007 edition of the Fraud [...]