From Biometrics to Blockchain: The Current and Future State of Background Screening


Woman's face with computer code overlay representing the future of biometrics, blockchain technology, and verifiable credentials

Enough with the paperwork. 

Certn is guided by the belief that background checks shouldn’t include any paperwork, but we have an even bigger mission. 

My co-founders and I created Certn to make sharing information faster and easier and to solve one of society’s hardest problems: building trust. We believe that opportunities increase alongside trust, so we’re improving digital verifications to mobilize greater futures. This isn’t just about hiring, but every transaction that requires trust between a person and another person or a business.

Since 2016, we’ve been making background screening faster and easier for our 20,000 clients through simplified workflows, online background checks, and AI-powered products. While we’ve been innovating all parts of the background screening process for employers, property managers, and lenders, and influencing change in the industry, we’re also preparing for a future when there are no more background checks, at least not in the traditional sense.

The Problem with Background Checks

The old way, background screening is time-consuming and frustrating. Without Certn, a person completing a background check might have to show up in-person to a police station to verify their identity and pay to have their records mailed to them. 

The “best case scenario” for both parties involves a lot of confusing paperwork, trying to scan documents, and endless email chains. Other vendors get away with promising results in days, but it usually ends up being closer to weeks by the time the information is received and the results are processed. The clients we work with say slow vetting processes often result in missing out on opportunities. 

With the Certn background check process, we offer fully digital results in as little as 15 minutes (depending on the check you run). Our identity verification process, powered by Trustmatic, is also online, which means you don’t have to travel or wait in line to establish trust. These are just two examples of how we make things faster and easier, and why we have the world’s easiest background checks.

Female cybersecurity expert writing code on computer to demonstrate digital trust in background screening

Digital Trust

Digital trust is everything. Carrying the Certn logo, you’re not just embracing faster and easier ways of doing things – you’re leading the charge in building trust. 

While trust is an abstract idea, it’s fundamental to building a safer digital world – you deserve to know for certain who you’re interacting with online, that the technologies and processes involved are secure and ethical. Digital trust is the belief you have that the people you’re interacting with online are genuine people, not bots or someone pretending to be someone they aren’t. It’s also the faith you have that the systems you rely upon are secure, reliable, and meet stated privacy standards. We cover more on this in our piece, The Evolution of Identity Verification.

Creating and maintaining trust in our digital world is challenging in an era when high-profile security, privacy and ethical missteps have become commonplace. We also understand there are also factors driving gaps in trust such as stories of growing fraud and misinformation being spread online.

Background Checks to Build Digital Trust

To improve digital trust, the current state and near future of background screening and background checks (whether for hiring, property managers, lenders, etc.) will be characterized by:

  • Greater automation
  • Integration with digital credentials
  • Biometric identification
  • Blockchain technology and enhanced data security
  • Compliance with evolving privacy regulations
  • A brag-worthy User experience

Spoiler: This is everything we’re focused on right now at Certn.

How Certn Background Screening Helps Keep Clients Safe

Greater Automation

With advancements in artificial intelligence (AI) and machine learning, background checks are becoming more automated and streamlined. It’s no secret AI algorithms can analyze vast amounts of data quickly, which improves the efficiency and accuracy of background screening processes. We’ve run millions of automated checks since 2016. If you ask me, no paper-based background checks should exist by 2025.

Integration with Digital Credentials

As digital credentialing systems become more widespread, background checks will integrate seamlessly with these systems to verify individuals’ qualifications and credentials electronically. This integration in the background screening industry will enhance the speed and reliability of credential verification processes, which is why I’m already working on our vision for a verifiable credentials network and a digital wallet.

Biometric Identification

As my teams have covered in What to Know About Identity Verification, biometric verification involves using unique physical or behavioural traits, such as fingerprints, facial features, or voice patterns, to confirm an individual’s identity. Biometric technologies such as facial recognition and fingerprint scanning will play a greater role in identity verification during background checks. This method adds an extra layer of security and expedites the verification process for everything from pre-employment background screening to online gaming. These technologies, which already make up our leading identity verification that’s powered by Trustmatic, offer more robust methods of confirming individuals’ identities compared to traditional forms of identification. I’m excited to share that earlier this year we announced that all Certn clients benefit from Trustmatic’s leading identity verification

The advantages of biometric identity verification extend beyond just authentication. It simplifies the onboarding process by reducing the reliance on manual checks and documentation. Users can go through a more streamlined and efficient verification, resulting in a quicker transition from recruitment to actual employment and businesses can start making money.

Blockchain Technology and Enhanced Data Security

Blockchain technology offers secure and tamper-proof record-keeping capabilities. In the future, background checks may leverage blockchain to maintain immutable records of individuals’ backgrounds, enhancing data security and transparency in the screening process. Whereas blockchain-based identity solutions can help prevent instances of false or misleading information being provided during background checks. 

The use of the blockchain also on our roadmap for future iterations of our verifiable credentials network.

Evolving Privacy Standards and Compliance Requirements: Continuous Monitoring

Continuous monitoring, like PEP screening in the financial services sector already helps institutions stay informed about changes in clients’ circumstances that may make them more vulnerable to fraud – vigilance and ongoing monitoring are essential to detect red flags that may not be captured in initial screenings.

There’s employment legislation and privacy laws that can make this challenging to adopt as a standard operating procedure in some workplaces, and we’re not saying it should be implemented everywhere, but we’re helping run more regular screening in some industries where it’s permitted within relevant local, state, and federal compliance requirements. What’s continuous monitoring? Rather than conducting background checks as a one-time event, organizations, especially those with robust cybersecurity measures, may choose to adopt continuous monitoring solutions that provide real-time updates on certain aspects of employees’ backgrounds. 

Brag-Worthy User Experience: Enhanced Candidate Experience Standards

Faster turnaround times, user-friendly interfaces, and transparent communication about the screening process can help candidates feel more engaged and informed throughout the hiring process. Our Applicant Portal allows candidates to quickly and easily complete background checks and more transparency – candidates can track progress and manage all applications, including historic ones. We’ve found that demystifying the background check process helps alleviate stress and improve the experience, both of which improve your chances of attracting the best people.

While we can do more and more to improve background screening, including all the enhancements discussed above, if we don’t prepare for a world where there aren’t any background checks, or there’s a different way of verifying, we’ll get left behind.

Individual using payment method on smartphone to pay at coffee shop to represent digital trust and ease of digital trust for background screening

Trust in the Verifiable Credentials Network

Current verification processes are tedious, slow, expensive, and depend in part or in whole on offline services and manual validation, which doesn’t align with new online and remote ways of working, expectations of fast online services, and on-demand services such as those from online marketplaces.

Despite all the drawbacks, in-person vetting is still common because of the prevailing belief that the kind of information described above is only trustworthy when expressed as physical credentials. In other words, there’s a high level of trust in physical credentials (likely given the ability of agents to inspect them to assess their authenticity).

Value of Digital Credentials

A digital credential can represent all of the same information that a physical credential represents. Plus, the addition of technologies, such as digital signatures, can make digital credentials even more tamper-evident and trustworthy than their physical counterparts. This is where our verifiable credentials network comes in. The primary goal of a verifiable credentials network is to establish trust in the authenticity and integrity of digital credentials – it’s part of a paradigm shift.

The best part? Verifiable credentials don’t slow you down. Given the digital format of verifiable credentials, organizations can incorporate them into automated validation and verification processes with more ease compared to the physical processes. Maybe more importantly for some, the technical design of verifiable credentials inherently supports encryption.

Building Trust in Digital Data

How can we build trust in digital data? Trust in digital data relies on a combination of technological innovation, regulatory frameworks, and collaborative efforts among stakeholders to establish a safe and secure ecosystem for verifiable credentials.

There are four dimensions to our approach:

  1. Authenticity – You need to show, definitively, that the information comes from the source it says it did and that it hasn’t been altered. This is where the use of decentralized blockchain technology in our verifiable credentials network to create authentic digital proof comes in.
  2. Security – Everything has to be verified as authentic and unaltered all the time and only people with legitimate permissions should be able to access it. Robust security measures, such as encryption, cryptographic signatures, and secure storage, are essential for protecting digital data from unauthorized access and tampering. Trust in verifiable credentials depends on the assurance that sensitive information remains secure throughout its lifecycle.
  3. Privacy – We’re building a trusted digital ecosystem for authentic verification that meets rigorous privacy standards in a frictionless way. Respecting individuals’ privacy rights and reducing risk by minimizing the collection and disclosure of personal data is fundamental to building trust. Verifiable credentials should adhere to privacy-by-design principles, allowing individuals to control the sharing and use of their personal information.
  4. Interoperability – Trust in digital data increases when systems and platforms can seamlessly exchange verifiable credentials using open standards. Interoperability ensures that credentials issued by one organization or platform can be easily verified and accepted by others, enhancing trust in the overall ecosystem.

Compliance with recognized standards and best practices, such as those developed by organizations like the World Wide Web Consortium (W3C) and the Decentralized Identity Foundation (DIF), instills confidence in the reliability and integrity of verifiable credential systems.

Certn’s Vision for a Verifiable Credentials Network

As I covered above, verifiable credentials are digital representations of physical information. They’re cryptographically signed by the issuer, the entity sending the information, and can be securely shared and verified by relying parties, the entity requesting the information. This technology promises greater privacy, security, and convenience when it comes to information sharing. 

Our vision for a verifiable credentials network builds on how we’ve disrupted the background screening industry, an industry entrenched in outdated manual processes and paperwork. We’re building the identity infrastructure and enhancing our single global platform with identity features such as verifiable credentials and digital wallets to transform how our clients and users execute checks and exchange data. 

In addition to providing a better user experience, we’re also developing this more robust, trustworthy architecture in response to broader trends impacting work and onboarding such as remote users, bring your own device (BYOD), cloud-based services, and self-sovereign identity. 

Background Screening Next Steps for a Safer Future

I’m watching all these technologies and more. We’ve already incorporated many of the latest technological advancements into our background screening processes at Certn; if there’s a tool or system out there that can help our clients be more successful with hiring, we’re all over it. 

If you’re interested in making your recruiting and hiring process seamless and effective, contact me today.

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