Love them or hate them, public records are here to stay and have been for decades at this point. Doing a public record search can have a lot of benefits that you wouldn’t think of when first asked about the topic. Everything from keeping your family safe to keeping a little extra money in your savings account can be accomplished by using a public data search, but how exactly can it accomplish these things? Let’s take a look into the most common ways that public records help people in their day-to-day lives.
Public Records Can Help You Keep Yourself and Your Loved Ones Safe
Many people all over the world value safety pretty highly. No one wants themselves or their loved ones to end up in the ICU, needing years of intensive therapy, or worse because of circumstances beyond their control. Of course, there’s no way to predict these circumstances that we have no power over, but public records can give you a better idea of who in your neighborhood and community might pose an active threat to the safety of yourself or someone you care deeply about.
Arguably the most common use of public records for safety is the sex offender registry. This registry exists in every state as well as on the federal level, and it tells you who in your area is a sex offender. You can search by name and find out exactly what crime was committed, how long ago it was committed, and the name, address, physical description, and photograph of the offender. This registry is invaluable for parents and non-parents alike when trying to figure out who in their area is a threat.
Sex offenders don’t leave anything pleasant in their wake. In the best-case scenario, the victims of sexual crime need a lot of therapy to overcome the trauma that they were dealt by the incident. In the worst-case scenario, victims can end up in the ICU recovering from injuries sustained from their assaulter. These registries save people from that kind of suffering on a daily basis, and millions of people access them every day to find the information that they provide so they can better keep themselves and their loved ones safe.
A less commonly used method for keeping yourself and your loved ones safe is looking into people’s criminal records. It’s a little trickier than just looking at the sex offender registry, but all you need is a good personal background check service. These services provide all sorts of invaluable information about people’s backgrounds so you can see for sure if they’re a sketchy person that you shouldn’t allow to be in your life. Criminal records are especially useful because they show you what crimes someone has been convicted of, but those are far from the only records that you can get from a personal background check service.
These services also provide arrest records, court records, active warrants, and a lot more. All of that information is incredibly useful for painting a very detailed picture of the person in question. Just because someone is arrested doesn’t mean that they actually committed the crime, just like if someone was acquitted, that doesn’t actually mean that they’re innocent. Being able to see their full background across multiple records allows you a very clear view of what type of person you’re dealing with. Many people that look into this information do, in fact, find that it’s a lot easier to gauge who is and isn’t a threat to themselves or their families.
Learn More About a City Before You Move to It
There are a lot of things that are considered public record. Statistical data is one thing that is considered a public record that many of us have seen, but not everyone puts two and two together. The amount of data that you can get about a particular city or region is staggering and might be a lot more than you’d realize upfront. All sorts of data is collected by every city, and while the raw data may be considered non-public, it is considered public information when it’s all been synthesized down into statistics.
For example, you can find out which parts of the city are the most dangerous by looking at crime statistics. Each city collected these statistics, and you can easily find the data by looking online. There are even websites that allow you to search for this information by zip code and place filters on your search. Being able to specify if you want information about violent crimes, property crimes, or crimes, in general, gives you a lot of power when deciding what area you want to move to. This is useful for families, especially when combined with a sex offender registry.
You can also find out how well educated an area is generally and all sorts of other information about an area. The census takes data every few years about areas, and all of the information they collect that doesn’t point to a specific individual is yours to access. Public statistical records are great for everyone looking to be sure that they’re moving into a safe neighborhood for their children or just for themselves.
Using Public Records to Help You Make Some Money
Everyone needs money to live. Some people are very creative in how they go about obtaining said money. There’s a good chance that people are profiting off of parts of your life that you didn’t even realize were profitable. For example, do you know how some places charge a few cents for debit card transactions? The companies that do the payment processing are making money hand over fist from that. Just because their system charges you doesn’t mean that they aren’t making money from the store.
People also have some creative ways that public records can help them make money. The most common way that is actually used by nearly every investor is through business records. Every business that is publicly traded must provide business records to the public. Based on that information, you can determine if you think the company is worth buying into or not for yourself. Of course, investing in the stock market is inherently risky, and people lose their shirts even with this information, but it is still a tool used by nearly every investor on the market.
People also commonly look at laws that are being drafted to see how they might affect the stock market. Laws can have a huge impact on how the market acts. For instance, if for some reason water parks were going to be outright banned, there’s a good chance that the shares of every water park in the United States would plummet, allowing the investor to know that they should probably dump their stocks. This works both for stocks becoming more and less valuable, but if you decide to go this route, make sure you’re careful. It’s a lot easier to lose your shirt on the stock market if you aren’t.
People also use public records to advertise their services all the time. If you’ve ever bought a home, been in a major car accident, filed a lawsuit, gotten married, gotten divorced, had a child, or even had a loved one die, you’ve probably been inundated with mailers from companies offering their services. That’s because the records pertaining to those things are considered public records, and companies are aware of that, so they use it to their advantage. This method of gaining leads might not work for every single type of business, but it does work for a good number of businesses.
Law firms are especially notorious for this type of practice. They’ll gather a list of court cases that their firm could handle and send a mailer to every single person on the list. This method works because it breeds familiarity with the potential client, meaning that they’ll be more likely to choose that firm when it comes time. That’s far from the only type of company that accesses public records to help them advertise their services. First-time home buyers definitely see a lot of mail from all sorts of companies right after they move in, advertising everything from home warranties to general construction services.
Using Public Records to Improve Your Life
Most people interact with public records on some level every single day, whether they’re aware of it or not. Public records influence our lives even to the point of how much gas can cost. Fortunately enough, this information is easy enough to find on the internet, and knowing how to find it can help you improve your quality of life if you’re lucky and clever enough to do so.
***SpyFly provides consumers affordable, immediate access to public record information. Federal laws prohibit businesses from using SpyFly’s service to make decisions about employment, insurance, consumer credit, tenant screening, or for any other purpose subject to the Fair Credit Reporting Act, 15 USC 1681 et seq.**
