How Does FBI Level 2 Background Check Work?
Most of us heard that Level 2 Background Check generally refers to a state and national fingerprint based check and consideration of disqualifying offenses, and applies to those employees designated by law as holding positions of responsibility or trust. But do you know what happens to your fingerprints when they reach FBI for Level II screening. Here is some information on what exactly happens there.
Your prints are forwarded from state repositories, such as FDLE to FBI's Integrated Automated Fingerprint Identification System, or IAFIS, which is a national fingerprint and criminal history system that responds to requests 24 hours a day, 365 days a year to help our local, state, and federal agencies to solve and prevent crime and catch criminals and terrorists. IAFIS provides automated fingerprint search capabilities, latent search capability, electronic image storage, and electronic exchange of fingerprints and responses.
Not only fingerprints, but corresponding criminal histories; mug shots; scars and tattoo photos; physical characteristics like height, weight, and hair and eye color; and aliases are included in IAFIS. The system also includes civil fingerprints, mostly of individuals who have served or are serving in the U.S. military or have been or are employed by the federal government. The fingerprints and criminal history information are submitted voluntarily by state, local, and federal law enforcement agencies.
IAFIS is the largest biometric database in the world, housing the fingerprints and criminal histories for more than 66 million subjects in the criminal master file, along with more than 25 million civil prints. Included in FBI's criminal database are fingerprints from 73,000 known and suspected terrorists processed by the U.S. or by international law enforcement agencies who work with us.
The average response time for an electronic criminal fingerprint submission is about 10 minutes, while electronic civil submissions are processed within an hour and 12 minutes. IAFIS processes an average of approximately 162,000 ten-print submissions per day.
