I Like Big Data
In Praise of the Global-Comprehensive—Total-Complete-One Stop-One Shop Search
I recently watched a video by private investigator Tim Santoni. In the video, Santoni warns against over-reliance on various “global” databases. Products put out by companies like Lexis, Westlaw, and Accurint that combine a bunch of searches in one report. His premise, which I strongly agree with, is that these products give the impression of thoroughness, of covering it all, when the reality is, there are many key public records not included, or included in limited ways, with these searches. Global only spans so far. As I have said, if you don’t know what you don’t know, you’ll have a hard time being a good researcher. Tim hammers this point in the video. But the more I noodled on this vlog, the more I wanted to shout back, “hey Tim, I like my global databases.”
The Global Database
Tim singled out the products sold by the big commercial online records providers—Lexis and Westlaw. They both provide searches that combine multiple records and package the results in easy to follow summary reports, which I’m calling today – the Global Database. What happens is this. You enter a name or company and within seconds a lot of records are searched and then laid out in an easy to follow format. Not only is the information well sorted, but these Global Databases have neat summaries on top of the summaries. There are other providers of these kinds of packaged searches, other versions of the Global Database. For the investigative market, there are TLO and Accurint, and for the public there are DIY options like Been Verified, Truthfinder, and White Pages. In recent years, a new form of comprehensive search has emerged which looks more for social media and related items. Vendors for this kind of search include Spokeo, Skopenow and Pipl. The Global Database includes three features:
1. Personal data, contact information, locations, and the like
2. Public record/open-source search results
3. A format that makes it easier to read or understand the results, along with a summary of the report
Put another way, a bunch of things get searched upon hitting enter. The real magic, however, comes from the idea that the records are sorted, collated, and cross-referenced. You put in Omar Khayyam, and what comes out should be your Omar Khayyam. [but you gotta know who your Omar Khayyam is in the first place. See this post for some insight into finding a grip ahead of your global searches; i.e., having something you can use to cross-reference so you know you have the right person.]
Tim, I’m sure I would not be the first person to point out that these global reports can also be inaccurate. They include records that are not your person, and they don’t include records that are your person. But realize that without these global searches, there would be pages and pages of records to peruse. Public record research does not happen like it does on TV. You do not enter a name and then just know a bunch of stuff. Instead, you enter a name. You get a bunch of records. You go through the records, figuring out which records match your subject. You go through the records that match your subject and figure out what they mean. Go through that and you may know something. See where the Global Database comes in?
I Like Global
When you look at the features of various search engines and search providers, do you key in on feature three? Easy to understand. The primary purpose of their reports is to help you get through the data. They strip out all the extraneous words or information in a public record, and they tell you what’s there. For instance, if you pull a mortgage from an online source, like a county recorder’s office, it will be twenty or so pages. That same mortgage record on your Lexis report will be about five lines. In most cases (but not all) those five lines will be all the information you need. It’s not just organization and summation that matters. I like global for a few other reasons.
· You need them
· They guide you
· They cover for you
You need them
I already alluded above that a primary advantage of global products comes from having a bunch of records put together for you. You also need them because they include information that can be hard to pin down, track down or otherwise get. First, there are all the address and location data for the person or company you are researching. As we will get to in a moment, this information is critical in doing public record research. Second, these reports uncover a lot of important connections. And because these global searches are scraping from so many data sources, they uncover spouses, family members, business affiliations – many items that may lead to other findings. Which gets us to…
They guide you
Tim rightly told you that these global reports don’t got it all. When they say comprehensive, they mean comprehensive of all the records we have access to, not comprehensive of all the public records in the world. These global searches do not cover most state and federal litigation records, although there are ways that certain litigation records are creeping into the reports—and for the record, there are global litigation searches on Lexis/Westlaw as well as through services like Court Link. Still, the global searches tell you where to search.
To find state litigation records you need to go to a place, like a county, since all state litigation records are filed by county. Either go to the county courthouse, send your friend to do it, or access the records via a website. If you go to the wrong courthouse, you will miss the records. Even when you do some broad litigation search, you can use the location information to narrow down your results. I just did searches on a person with a very common name. A PACER search found many matches for the name, but I only cared about matches in the states where the person lived or did business.
I have likened background research to squaring a circle. You are filling in the area, but you never quite make a solid patch. The push-pull of where to search, how many places to cover, national results versus location specific results, all determine how dark your circle looks. Yes, there may be some obscure court case out there, but if you don’t know to look for it, you will not find it. This makes sense because we have limited resources to approach each research project. We must choose wisely.
It is not just where or how to search. It’s who to search. In complex asset searches or any research where the person may not be who he or she says they are, vital information can arise from searching the other names that come with the global reports. Also, the addresses and phone numbers and email addresses – can usually also be used as search terms, often with stellar results.
They cover for you
I keep coming back to this. There is so much value in having someone else organize the data. These global searches join multiple sources of data. Real property information comes from two places. Real estate property tax records and Recorder of Deeds offices. Both sets of data matter in understanding ownerships and finding assets. Plus, these products do the math. The way to know a real property sale price is to look at the tax stamps on a deed and apply a formula. Right. That number is on your global report.
A search this week highlighted another key advantage of how the global searches can cover for you. I was looking for information on a company. All I had was a name. I ran it through a Global Database. What I found was that the company was not a company but just a name, a “fictitious business name”, also called an assumed name or a d/b/a. Like I say, a fictitious business name means it’s just a name. It is not a “legal person”. It can be a name used by a sole proprietorship, a partnership, or a trade name for a company. The other thing to know is that fictitious business names are almost always, around the US, filed at the county level. They will not be filed with a Secretary of State. You may not know which county to look in, or even to look at a county’s assumed name registry if you did not have the tip from the Global Database.
I’m not disagreeing with Tim and others who point out the limitations of Global Databases, which are not as comprehensive as you may think or as accurate as you hope. Big is not always best, but big data matters a lot in research. It saves an enormous amount of your time. It provides you connections and insight you may not see on your own; it points you to where to look, and it gives you information you may otherwise not have.