[Artemisia] Background checks -- preventing costly misfires?

[Xplex at aol.com]

While I applaud the general idea of background checks, I tend to get  hives 
at the idea of mysterious "pass/fail" checks of any sort, as they can  cause a 
lot of trouble for people who in no way deserve it, when they  aren't properly 
administered.
 
Witness the "no-fly" lists for air travel, or the similar border  checks for 
travel to Canada. People periodically get waylaid in those contexts,  due to 
simply having the same (or even just similar) name as  some suspicious person 
or convicted child pornographer, etc. Some of  them have to go through the same 
process of being pulled aside every time they  travel -- they never get away 
from it. You'd think they'd put something  corrective in the database, or at 
least give these people an  official paper to take with them or something, to 
say "nope, I'm not the  villain you're looking for," but apparently not. So 
they get stuck with it,  seemingly forever.
 
Also, see the issue of credit checks -- once some error (or ID theft) dings  
up your credit report, it can take a huge amount of resources to get back on  
track, so that people aren't rejecting you for everything based on a  
mysterious "pass/fail" check of some sort. This affects the person  and their family, 
in terms of wasted resources trying to figure out what  the problem is, and 
then trying to fix it, plus it obviously affects  whatever aspects of their 
lives require good credit. This, too, can go on for  years.
 
I, myself, wound up getting something in the mail, several years ago, where  
someone had used my name/address to register some potentially  
child-porn-esque website (based on the domain name, anyway -- there was no  actual website up 
yet, at that time). They had paid for it in some other way, so  they didn't 
get my $$$, but there was my name sitting there, officially  associated with 
this blankety-blankin' domain name! And I couldn't just *tell*  the domain 
people it was bogus (my first reaction) and have them instantly  remove it (I'd 
still like to know why not!) -- they wanted me to jump  through a bunch of hoops, 
fax them stuff, etc., etc. -- and I had to do it  repeatedly. It was like 
trying to talk to a brick wall. I don't know if my name  was EVER disassociated 
from that domain -- I don't remember exactly what it was,  anymore, and will 
have to try to find my records from all that correspondence to  check on it. I 
just got fed up with wasting so much time dealing with the "brick  wall" thing. 
Plus, the last time I did look, there was still no  actual site up. So who 
knows...
 
But! Let's say it hasn't been disassociated -- is that going  to suddenly pop 
up in a background check like the one they're talking about  running for the 
SCA, and then come back as a mysterious "fail"? How much time  and energy 
would I then have to put into, first, trying to find out for  sure what caused the 
"fail," and then to try to clear THAT out of my  "record" in "the system"? 
 
And because some probably consider this a risk worth taking, because of the  
importance of protecting kids, it's also worth keeping in mind that  when 
parents are having to expend much of their not-very-plentiful resources  trying to 
clear their names of any of the above kinds of errors  entered into their 
public databanks, that's both time and material  resources stolen from their 
kids, as well. (Been there, done that, in  various contexts -- and this aspect, of 
any errors also having  adverse effects on kids, is something that makes me 
even more  cranky!)
 
And this doesn't even get into the stories of vindictive ex-spouses  claiming 
abuse of their kids by the other parent, etc., etc...
 
So I guess my question would be: Do these systems have some way of  
preventing the (probably inevitable) bogus "fail" reports from causing  unnecessary 
harm to the families they affect? Like the ability to review  and refute, QUICKLY 
and EASILY, with proper documentation, etc.? Or would  we all be risking one 
of those life-changing, never-ending, brick-wall,  can't-fix-it scenarios any 
time we decided to volunteer for "kid duty"?
 
Again, the general idea of background checks is excellent -- it's the  
possible nightmares for individuals and their families, that can be caused  by poor 
implementation of said checks (not to mention the potential  for discouraging 
volunteerism, due to folks being risk-aversive, if those  nightmares are 
reasonably likely), that causes me to be very, very wary of  such a thing, and very 
concerned about how such a system would be put into place  in such a way as 
to prevent this...
 
(Hopefully the "Powers that Be" are already taking these sorts of concerns  
into account...)
 
My 2 cents...
 
CJ the Amnesiac
Deputy Web Minister
Shire of Arrows'  Flight



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