Hot topic: International Business Background Investigations
AIIP-L, AIIP’s active, private discussion list, is one of AIIP’s premier benefits and ways of connecting member-to-member. In this forum, we share tips for working on and in our businesses, including marketing, product development, technology, and much more. Following is a summary of one of the hot topics recently discussed on AIIP-L.
For information professionals seeking to conduct background investigations on individuals and companies outside of the U.S., there is a lack of informational sources readily available to assist with such queries. This is not the case for individuals who live in the U.S., as there are several available resources for those types of cases. Researchers working outside the U.S. must employ other avenues of investigation in order to deliver results for their clients. AIIP-L participants were delighted to offer alternate routes of research to the initial query.
First, investigator and author Cynthia Hetherington weighed in with helpful suggestions. While her book Background Business Investigations was an initial resource for researchers, it didn’t offer much practical help for searching outside the U.S. It’s since been superseded by other avenues of investigation, as the author acknowledges the book is dated. However, she offered a suggestion of another one of her books, Online Due Diligence Investigations, but she also mentions it’s not very helpful for non-U.S. based searching. She and other AIIP members are working on a wiki (The Global Guide to Due Diligence) for global due diligence research, but it isn’t available quite yet. In the short term, she recommended contacting a local AIIP member in the country where the research needed to happen, and perhaps hiring a local investigation service to complete the research. She also recommended business directories and IP (Intellectual Property) offices as a good starting point for research, as well as business sets from local vendors that might contain helpful data.
The one caution Cynthia conveyed, and one that is important enough to merit its own paragraph, is to be careful about the export of data about citizens out of their home countries. Every country has its own set of privacy laws for individuals, and many of them are much more restrictive than the U.S. (“think GDPR on steroids” was her exact phrase). So always be sure that any individuals in those countries who are hired for local work are operating with licenses, and are able to legally export data to satisfy the queries as posed.
Other AIIP members recommended venues such as the OpenCorporates website for obtaining basic information about non-U.S. companies and their officers. Getting as much biographical information as possible to start with was a helpful tip, as common names can trip up searching, but having specifics can winnow down large data sets to more manageable numbers. Searching professional organizations was another idea, as professions such as engineers and doctors often have biographical information on members in their directories.
Another AIIP member also suggested hiring a local firm or reaching out the AIIP members in that country, and a follow-up message by the original poster indicated that this was the route they were going to take. Due to the lack of specific information provided on the individual, and the common nature of their name, the original poster felt a local firm would be the best bet to discover information about this individual that could then be provided to the client.
While finding background information on non-U.S. based individuals and companies is more challenging than U.S. searches, it is not impossible. It may, however, involve working through different channels, including outsourcing the investigation and working with professionals who are more familiar with the resources and restrictions for each country.
