Monitoring FAQ

Would my subject I am monitoring be notified?

No, the person you are monitoring is not notified they are being monitored and all of the information gathered is publicly available data.

What if I just want to monitor sanctions and enforcements or other pieces?

You can select a la carte components like sanctions and enforcements to monitor by themselves. Speak to your sales rep to discuss pricing for a la carte monitoring options.

How is a confidence/match score derived?

A confidence score on criminal records is derived based on the % match of the name and DOB provided. The match score on news, sanctions and enforcements is derived based on the

What does refinement mean and how is it used for common names?

Refinements are elements you can add to news monitoring to reduce false positives for common names. Refinements can be corporate affiliations, locations or other identifiers. These can be set up as “OR” and you can add as many as you would like to cast a broad net while reducing noise.

Do I have to have a signed release to monitor?

No, you do not need a signed release to monitor subjects, just a permissible use.

How does news monitoring work?

News monitoring is done by scraping Google and other major search engines in real time along with connecting to RSS feeds and scraping major and local news sites directly. Vcheck’s news monitoring does not rely upon databases that are outdated or only updated periodically. Vcheck’s news monitoring is continually monitoring for new news on the web.

By default, news monitoring is set to derogatory only records but you can change the settings to allow for all news, not just derogatory on subjects.

Vcheck’s news tool uses AI to aggregate news articles and summarizes them into one easy-to-read alert to eliminate duplicative alerts. It also cites the news links so you can easily click out to the original sources and review content directly.

Can I group my subjects? What are Groups?

Yes, you can add your subjects to groups in the portal. Groups operate similar to folders, you can control permissions by group and alerts. Groups are highly flexible and can be sorted by whatever internal group criteria a firm requires.

How does criminal monitoring work?

Criminal monitoring covers criminal records for 92% of the population in the US. Criminal monitoring covers, federal, state and county level records across court filings, arrest records and sex offender registries.

How does sanctions and enforcement monitoring work?

Sanctions and enforcements cover a large amount of lists as well as findings of regulatory mentions in news media. Aggregating coverage through Google, instead of just relying on specific lists/databases expands scope and flags regulatory items often before or immediately as a subject is being added to a list.

How does PEP monitoring work?

PEPs cover many lists as well as findings of political exposure mentions in news media. Aggregating coverage through Google, instead of just relying on specific lists/databases expands scope and flags political exposure often before a subject is added to a list.

What does it mean to add a subject?

Adding a Subject to monitoring means that users will receive alerts on the individual or entity if new information is found.

To add a Subject, navigate to the ‘Subjects’ tab within the Vcheck Platform, and click “Add Monitoring.” Users can add new Subjects manually or via list upload. Once the information is entered and submitted, our workflow will begin actively monitoring for any relevant hits related to the Subject.

How do I remediate a subject?

Users can remediate Subjects by comparing confidence scores, alert type, sources, and other personal details. The Vcheck Platform user-view shows all of the alerts associated with a given subject, including the data Vcheck has on file, what the alert returned, and the alert’s confidence score. Hits are sourced with the most relevant information for Subject remediation.

Vcheck’s algorithm is familiar with common corporate designators like 'Limited,' 'LLC,' and 'Inc,’ and filters them to avoid interference with match confidence. Our solution weighs common terms and verbiage low, looking instead at the match strength of distinctive words to calculate confidence scores.

Changes to a Subject’s monitoring parameters and remediation are summarized and documented in the activity log for future collaboration among team members.

Can you help me remediate?

What if I don’t want to remediate alerts? Can Vcheck help me remediate? Yes, although due to our lack of false positives, this is often not needed unless there is an incredibly high volume of subjects.

News alerts vs traditional google alerts?

Google alerts provide an alert for any type of news hit that is relatively close to your subject regardless of if it is of derogatory nature or not and sends multiple alerts for news on the same topic. Vcheck news monitoring only sends alerts for news that is derogatory and consolidates articles on the same topic into one alert and summarizes them to reduce the noise.

Can you monitor names in foreign characters?

Yes, Vcheck monitoring covers news in 15 languages and you can monitor subjects in foreign characters.

What languages does continuous monitoring cover?

Vcheck monitoring provides coverage in English, French, Dutch, German, Italian, Spanish, Korean, Portuguese, Romanian, Russian, Simplified Mandarin, Traditional Mandarin, Ukrainian, Arabic, and Japanese.

How does the system handle aliases?

Our system accounts for minor name variations and can take multiple input name variations/aliases for when names are dramatically different.

Can I specifically filter by certain types of derogatory news?

Yes, you can filter for certain categories of news, for example, if you only wanted to get alerts for bribery and corruption news alerts, but not general derogatory news, this is possible to configure.

What is your criminal records coverage?

Criminal monitoring covers criminal records for 92% of the population in the US. Criminal monitoring covers, federal, state and county level records across court filings, arrest records and sex offender registries. Arrest records provides timely coverage for areas where the criminal charges directly from the court are not available.