PC World: Controversial App Provides Background Checks On the Go
Tony Bradley at PC World reports on a controversial third-party application available in Apple’s iTunes store:
A new app from BeenVerified is adding even more controversy to the privacy dilemma by enabling users to conduct background checks on anyone in a matter of seconds from their iPhone.
The Background Check App is free and employers and individuals can use it to conduct up to three free background checks per week via the iPhone. Users, particularly employers who may want to conduct checks of employees, vendors, suppliers, partners, and other parties they do business with, can also subscribe to the BeenVerified service which would grant them unlimited background checks starting at only $8 per month. [...]
I contacted [BeenVerified CEO Josh Levy] and asked whether he feels that the background checks provided by BeenVerified are in any way a violation of an individual’s expectation of privacy. Levy replied “It is not a violation of privacy to aggregate the data and present it in one place. The average person would not even know where to begin finding all of this public information and we help present public records in a way that maximizes the usefulness of the information.” [...]
According to BeenVerified, though, there has been no controversy about the popularity of the app. In just three weeks since its release, approximately 400,000 users have downloaded the app, and one million checks have been run so far. The company is already working on Version 2.0 of it Background Check App and is about to release a version for both Blackberry and Android.
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