# Lawful Pathways Beyond Vouch

Vouch is one route: **consent-based public-source verification**. It is not the route for every kind of background check.

## Eligibility screening — job, housing, credit, insurance

Use a certified consumer reporting agency (CRA). A real CRA process normally requires a permissible purpose, a standalone disclosure to the subject, the subject's written authorization, identity and record-matching procedures, report delivery, dispute handling, and pre-adverse-action and adverse-action notices when a report affects a decision.

Examples of the category include established employment and tenant screening companies. Vouch does not offer this service today and does not present its reports as eligible for those decisions.

## Credentialed data providers

Providers such as large legal, identity, and public-record data platforms generally sell access only to credentialed organizations. Expect a registered business, documented statutory permissible purpose, use-category restrictions, contracts, security review, possible site inspection, and audits. Personal curiosity and general people-finding are not permissible purposes for many restricted datasets.

## Licensed private investigator

A licensed private investigator may be appropriate for lawful locating, litigation support, fraud investigation, or similar work. Licensing, permissible data access, methods, and reporting duties vary by state. Check the investigator's license and ask what data sources and legal bases they use.

## Your own records

You do not need someone else's permission to understand your own footprint. You can request your own consumer-file disclosures where the law provides them, review your own credit reports through the federally authorized channel, correct errors with the source, and use Vouch's own-footprint purpose or Breach Check to review public exposure.

## Verified Consent (IDV) — future tier

Identity-verification platforms (the Persona / Veriff / Trulioo class) let the subject prove they are the signer — their own government ID plus a liveness check — inside the consent flow, before anything runs. That strengthens a Vouch signature from a typed name to a verified person consenting. It requires a business account with the provider and per-verification pricing, so it is the documented paid upgrade path for Vouch — not built today. IDV would strengthen the signature only; it never widens what gets checked.

## What Vouch deliberately does not connect

No data-broker APIs (the PeopleDataLabs / BeenVerified / Whitepages class), no people-search sites (PeopleFinders class), no breach-content lookup services (DeHashed class), no OSINT leak-database modules, and no third-party financial lookups. Those products trade in non-consented data; connecting them would break the one rule Vouch exists on — nobody gets checked who didn't sign.

## What no pathway changes

A searcher's promise does not replace the subject's consent. Restricted data still requires a lawful basis. If a proposed use depends on deception, bypassing an access control, buying leaked contents, or obtaining someone's private address or credentials, it is not a lawful pathway.