With the globalization of our country and the fact that many foreign nationals are employed by companies within the United States, having the ability to conduct an international background check has become important to a large number of companies across the nation. These companies want to be able to review the prior histories of the all of the people that they are considering hiring, including the people that have come to the United States from a different country.

For many background check companies in the United States, being able to obtain an international background check on an individual may be extremely difficult due to the differing laws regarding the disclosure of personal information for the citizens of that country. In some cases, the only option a background check company has in these situations is to search the public media files to see if the person's name has ever been reported to the media as being linked to a crime.

Many of the companies in the United States that offer an international background check for a low fee are actually conducting a media check and supplementing that with information obtained from a brief check of the international terrorist watch list. Although some countries make their criminal records readily available, many more have that information restricted to members of their own government who need to be able to access the information for their jobs.