background check Archives - Erase Mugshots

How Does Your Criminal Past Impact Your Online Reputation?

Posted on November 24, 2025November 24, 2025 by Adam

Are you wondering if your criminal past is causing problems with your personal or professional life? Do you even know if your record exists online? Read on to find out what you need to know about your criminal records and starting over with a clean slate.

We’ve all made mistakes that have disrupted our lives at one time or another. And a troubled past is something most people would like to forget about.

Unfortunately, when it comes to obtaining a job, credit line or mortgage, your criminal history could come back to haunt you. There are numerous situations in which people may have to undergo a criminal history check — and what surfaces could impact your life.

Often, people believe that the bad things they’ve done in their past won’t appear online because enough time has passed. Unfortunately, this is not always the case.

What will come up in the check will depend on the service used and the types of records that it can access.

Since records from police departments, courts and other criminal justice agencies have now been digitized — and because it’s easier than ever to access public records through third-party sites — it’s possible that anything that happened in someone’s past will be accessible forever.

Here’s how criminal history record information from your past can impact your present, as well as your future.

Our mugshot removal services will remove your online arrest records, criminal records and mugshot images fast. Contact us today at 866-601-6803 to learn more about getting a clean slate.

Criminal Records and Credit History

There’s more overlap between your criminal history record information and your credit information than you may think. There are three main credit reporting agencies:

Experian
TransUnion
Equifax

The first two play a role when a pre-employment criminal check occurs, as well as credit and tenant screenings.

If a check occurs as part of employment screening, then the prospective employer must notify the applicant of the intention to perform the check and obtain consent in writing. Some of the information contained on a credit report is time-limited, according to FCRA rules.

For instance, bankruptcies can only appear for 10 years, and paid tax liens and civil judgments can only appear for seven years. However, a criminal conviction does not have a time limit and will appear on a credit file potentially for life, making it nearly impossible to have a true clean slate.

Our mugshot removal experts will analyze search engine results to find and remove your personal information, mugshots and criminal history record online. Call us at 866-601-6803 for more information.

Statewide Criminal History Record Checks

Individual states collect data from their criminal justice and law enforcement agencies, both at the city and county levels. Anyone who is able to access these files can see all of the information they contain.

In some cases, you may be able to have your records expunged or sealed. This could protect the information from showing up in criminal history checks. For many, this is as close to a clean slate as they can get.

However, if the data existed online before expungement or sealing and circulated on news sites, people search sites and other sources, that information could still show up in a basic Google search or background check.

People assume that having a record expunged (or even sealed) by the court administration means that all references to the event are automatically erased, but that’s not accurate. Criminal justice agencies aren’t responsible for the information that exists on third-party sites or in Google results.

We work on behalf of our clients to erase mugshots, arrest records, police reports and other sensitive criminal history information from the internet. Give us a call at 866-601-6803 to learn more.

Long-Term Consequences of Having a Criminal History Online

Negative content online can affect more than your credit and employment. It can also impact your relationships, professional opportunities and ability to rent or buy a home.

Negative search results influence the first impression you make with potential business partners, romantic interests, employers and landlords.

A Criminal History Can Cause Employment Challenges

If a potential employer runs a check on you and finds your criminal past, you could be passed over for the job. This is especially like in specific fields, such as healthcare, education, government, law enforcement and finance.

Why? Employers may consider a past offense to be a sign of your character or too big a risk to take for their company. This can lead to you missing out on career opportunities.

Conviction Records Have Financial Consequences

It’s not uncommon to be denied for a credit line, loan or mortgage due to your financial or criminal history. And beyond impacting your personal life, you could also struggle when trying to obtain business financing due to a criminal history.

Home Rental Issues From a Criminal History Record

It’s very common for landlords and property managers to run background checks on tenants before allowing them to rent a home. Or, if they do let you rent, you may have to pay a higher security deposit or agree to stricter rental terms. Even a minor event from your past could end up literally costing you more to find a safe place to live.

Impact of Criminal History on Personal Relationships

It’s common for people who have a criminal past to face scrutiny from family members, friends, peers, coworkers and dating partners. This can make it difficult to maintain trust with your current connections and even more difficult to forge new personal or professional relationships in the future.

8 More Consequences of a Public Criminal History Record To Consider

What else do you have to worry about if your criminal records are discovered online? Take the following into consideration:

Being denied a mortgage
Denial of professional certification
Difficulty finding a business partner
Ineligibility for child custody or visitation
Losing job promotions
Paying higher insurance premiums
Not being able to adopt a child
Stress and anxiety of knowing your personal information is readily available

Be mindful of how events from your past can resurface. Mugshots, news reports and social media interactions that you thought were gone for good can pop up when you least expect them to.

Professional Services To Remove a Criminal History Record

At EraseMugshots.com, we offer removal services to get rid of criminal history information and help you rebuild your online reputation. Whether you have arrest records, mugshots or reports from criminal justice agencies online, we’ll work on your behalf to remove them from search results.

It doesn’t matter if your charges were expunged, dismissed or dropped, or even if you were found guilty, either. Our strategies will remove or suppress negative content from showing up on mugshot websites and in Google search results.

Give us a call at 866-601-6803 to learn more about removing your criminal history record and additional information that’s harming your reputation.

Should You Remove Background Check Information From the Internet?

Posted on November 5, 2025November 5, 2025 by Adam

This article explains why you may want to remove background check information from search results and online sources to protect your digital reputation.

Long gone are those days when the use of background checks was limited to employers who wanted to screen potential job candidates for previous criminal records. Today, background check companies are part of everyday life. They’re used by people on dating apps, landlords, college admissions departments and more. According to a market research report about U.S. background check services, the industry now brings in over $5 billion in revenue annually.

As background check technology has advanced, the amount of personal data available online has, too. In the past, getting a person’s information required an in-person search or a formal request. Now, that same information can be found online in seconds with a simple Google search.

Data brokers, public records websites, and people-search sites have made it easier than ever to find all sorts of information about a person. These platforms publish basic details like a person’s full name, phone number and home address. They also include in-depth information like employment history, family member names, criminal history and court records. The worst part is that you don’t have to give your consent to have this data available for public access.

Having criminal records and other information online may serve a purpose.

In some cases, it’s considered a public service to have criminal history records and other types of public records easily accessible. For example, background check companies allow employers to learn more about potential candidates. They also let people verify someone’s identity before they hire them as a babysitter or agree to go on a date.

Unfortunately, having your public records online can also pose risks to your privacy and reputation. Plus, when you consider that some of that information may be incomplete, misleading or flat-out wrong, there’s an even bigger threat to your digital presence. When negative information shows up in Google search results for your name, your personal and professional opportunities can be impacted.

Understanding how background checks work is essential to managing the information that people have easy access to. While these services technically run private databases, as access to full information is often behind a paywall, they’re still easy to access by just about everyone.

In this article, we’ll look at both sides of background check services to explore the times when they can be useful and the instances when the information can be harmful.

You can take back control of your online reputation. Call us today at 866-601-6803 to speak with an expert about criminal history record removal.

Background Check Companies: The Positive Side

In many cases, background check companies promote accountability, safety and trust in personal and professional ways. When these private databases are searched ethically and while complying with privacy laws, individuals and employers can make informed decisions.

Protection for Consumers and Employers

Employers often use background check private databases to confirm that job candidates are who they say they are. Benefits include:

Fraud Prevention: By verifying credentials and background information, employers can avoid embezzlement and scams.
Reputation Management: Companies can maintain credibility and customer trust by hiring trustworthy employees.
Workplace Safety: Screening job applicants prevents harm by making sure that employees in childcare, education and healthcare have no criminal history.

Often, running a background check is the most reliable way to confirm the potential employee has the qualifications needed for the job.

Safer Communities

Two hands gently cup a group of glowing paper-cutout figures representing people of different genders, symbolizing community and unity. The image invites us to remove background check barriers, fostering genuine support and belonging for all.

Aside from the workplace, criminal background checks can protect the community:

Community and Volunteer Work: Non-profit organizations and schools often run background checks to make sure members are safe to work with children and the elderly.
Gig Work: Background checks and looking into criminal history are important for the gig-work economy. This is the only way to verify that people renting their homes out or becoming rideshare drivers are trustworthy and safe.
Tenant Screening: Landlords commonly use background checks and criminal records searches to confirm that the candidate has a history free of evictions, property damage and financial risks.

When used appropriately, private databases provide the information needed to keep the public safe.

Responsible Gun Ownership

One of the most-recognized uses of running a background check is when purchasing firearms. Here’s how the process goes:

An individual wants to buy a firearm.
The buyer fills out an ATF form.
The seller (a Federal Firearms Licensee, or FFL) contacts the National Instant Criminal Background Check System (NICS) either by phone or electronically.
The seller relays the buyer’s information to the NICS.
The NICS runs a background check on the buyer. This verifies if they have criminal records or anything that prevents them from buying a firearm.

According to the FBI’s official website, over 500 million checks have been run since the process launched in 1998, and over 2 million people have been denied the purchase of a firearm.

In this case, being able to check criminal history records and other information about the buyer stops sales to people with a criminal history, restraining order or mental health issues that could be a risk.

Drawbacks of Background Check Companies

Regardless of their many benefits, there are definite downsides to having your personal information and criminal history available to anyone interested enough to find it. The information in private databases is especially harmful when it’s inaccurate or taken out of context.

In this section, we’ll go over the real-world consequences that individuals face when their data is accessible to the public.

Our mugshot removal services will remove your criminal history records fast. Contact us today at 866-601-6803 to learn more.

Inaccurate or Out-of-Date Information

A person uses a laptop displaying a “Criminal Background Check” form, holding a pen and pointing at the screen. The scene appears to be in an office with bookshelves, possibly seeking ways to remove background check records.

Background reports are usually pulled from any public records found online. This means that plenty of information is gathered without ever verifying it for accuracy. As a result, old records or error-filled information can easily exist in a background report.

For example, let’s say the court drops a charge or approves you for record sealing. Remnants of that criminal history can show up online and in a background report. The same goes for expunged records following a court order.

It’s also possible that duplicate or mismatched data could be harming your online reputation. People with common names often find themselves attached to criminal records that actually belong to someone else.

What can seem like minor errors can quickly snowball out of control. When background data is scraped from the internet and republished over and over online, that’s what will show up when someone looks up information about you. At some point, it won’t matter that the data is incorrect or out of context. What will persist is the negative information surrounding your name.

Impact on Your Lifestyle

A person in a suit holds a magnifying glass in front of one of five identical businessmen standing in a row, highlighting the face of the selected individual as part of a background check.

Background checks can help employers, landlords and others make fair and informed choices. However, out-of-date or misleading data that circulates online can have the opposite effect. In some cases, using private databases for gathering personal data can create bias and cause the individual to miss out on opportunities.

Housing Discrimination: Renters or mortgage applicants may find themselves rejected based on inaccurate background report information.
Lost Job Opportunities: A job applicant may be denied a position due to a minor offense, even if it’s not related to the job. Current employees may also be fired if unflattering information arises online, regardless of how old it is.
Ongoing Reputation Damage: Even if data errors are corrected or past mistakes are explained, first impressions can last a lifetime.

These outcomes are damaging in a couple of different ways. First, there are some people who are simply victims of inaccurate information. They should never suffer for something that they weren’t involved in. Second, even a person with a criminal history can spend years rebuilding their life and changing themselves.

In either case, the individual and their opportunities will be at the whim of what someone can dig up online.

Our mugshot removal experts will analyze search engine results to find and remove your criminal history records online. Call us at 866-601-6803 for more information.

Risks to Privacy and Security

Background check databases can include more than criminal records. And even if you don’t have any past involvement with criminal justice agencies, the information found online may still put you in harm’s way. Personal information that exists online includes:

Your home and work addresses
Family members’ names and contact information
Social media account links

This opens the doors to a number of cybercrimes and in-person risks, such as harassment, identity theft and stalking. Phishing, personal data breaches, extortion and identity theft fall within the top 8 types of internet crimes reported to the FBI. Impersonation scams are trending upward, too. Both government impersonations and customer support impersonations are on the rise.

Why You Need To Prioritize Online Reputation Management

A row of wooden dominoes is falling, but a finger presses against one upright domino, stopping the chain reaction on a brown surface.

It’s easy to replicate criminal records and other information on private databases. That’s why content removal or suppression takes expertise and patience. Professional online reputation management services can do the following:

Find where your criminal records and other information appear online.
Request the removal of your criminal records from public and private databases.
Suppress criminal records and harmful information that can’t be removed.
Monitor the internet for new mentions of your name and listings of your data.
Build a new, fresh online presence that will outrank negative results for your name.

It’s an excellent plan to hire legal representation to pursue record sealing or expungement. However, that process can take a long time, and there’s no guarantee you’ll get the outcome you’re after.

Plus, even if your criminal history records are no longer available for public access, that information could still appear in search results.

Having criminal records expunged or sealed doesn’t automatically remove already-gathered information from private databases. Background check companies may still show your criminal records to anyone who searches for them.

We work on behalf of our clients to erase mugshots, arrest records, police reports, criminal records and more from public and private databases. Give us a call at 866-601-6803 to speak to an expert today.

Instant Checkmate Removal

Posted on October 17, 2022June 23, 2023 by Adam

Instant Checkmate Removal – For help with Instant Checkmate Removal, contact us today!

Instant Checkmate removal methods can be tricky for those who are less tech-savvy. Learn how to locate your personal records online Instant Checkmate and how you can work to remove them from the public eye.

Erasemugshots.com is a business that focuses on helping businesses and individuals get rid of listings that negatively affect their reputation and privacy. They have experienced huge successes with this, and are now the go-to source for people who find defamatory information is listed about them online.

The company is proud to announce that they now have a new privacy solution in place that enables them to remove Instant Checkmate profiles.

Adam from EraseMugshots.com says: “We launched to give people the ability to remove mugshots and remove arrest records from the internet. Arrest records will always be accessible at the government records depot and local courthouses, but that does not mean they have to be accessible through a basic Google search.”

After an Instant Checkmate review, individuals are more likely to remove the content based on how personal it is. Everything from your email address, place of residence, relatives’ information, and your criminal history are all readily available. Anyone with $15 and an internet connection can find out exactly where you live. Consumer reports such as these are useful but often misused for the wrong purposes.

If you live in the United States and care about your online reputation, removing yourself from Instant Checkmate is a must-do. Cancel your accounts, remove your personal information to regain control of your personal privacy.

Millions of public records are made easily available within a few clicks of your mouse. Make sure you are hiding your information and monitoring your online presence to ensure your information does not fall into the wrong hands.

Instant Checkmate Cancel Your Account By Contacting Them Directly

Adam from EraseMugshots.com says: “We launched to give people the ability to remove criminal records and remove arrest records from the internet. Arrest records will always be accessible at the government records depot and local court houses, but that does not mean they have to be accessible through a basic Google search.” – Adam

Instant Checkmate, meanwhile, is an online service that allows people to instantly perform criminal background reports. They claim to offer this service in order to empower people to protect themselves, enabling them to ensure that the people they associate with do not have a history of sexual or violent offenses.

The company searches a variety of public databases in order to expose arrests, charges, prison times, misdemeanors, and felony offenses. Instant Checkmate also aims to give people the opportunity to learn more about new people on their block, enabling them to be protected from sex offenders, for instance.

Another representative from EraseMugshots adds, “On the face of it, Instant Checkmate is offering an important service. However, just from the name of the company, you can see that they are quite aggressive. And, while their site instantly provides a disclaimer on how the information provided is not FCRA compliant, people use it to make decisions.

What is worrisome, however, is that there have been thousands of complaints against Instant Checkmate, with many people saying the information provided is incorrect, and that the company is engaged in clickbait, essentially encouraging people to satisfy their curiosity by looking up random people after paying a fee.”

EraseMugshots is referring to a Facebook advertisement showing a photograph of a CCTV camera and that of a young woman, with the statement “Search a name on this website… then brace yourself”.

Indeed, a common complaint against Instant Checkmate is that they are almost voyeuristic in nature and that they cross-reference their information rather than checking it for accuracy. The result is that many people have been listed on their website due to simple errors online.

Instant Checkmate Privacy Solution

The new privacy solution developed by EraseMugshots.com aims to address such errors. Their system starts by completing a thorough analysis of all the arrest records that are available online. So that it becomes clear what needs to be removed and where from. The company then takes just 72 hours to erase those records from the different websites that have published them. Offering a total removal solution.

After that, they also clean up Google, Yahoo!, and Bing, so that the information can no longer be found through the search engines. Uniquely, Erase Mugshots does not consider their job as completed until their clients are 100% satisfied

Meanwhile, Instant Checkmate has come under significant attack as of late. Some people have, in fact, accused the company of committing criminal offenses themselves. Particularly in relation to their pricing and billing policies. “Essentially, it seems that Instant Checkmate dangles a carrot of having information on an individual. Then requiring further payments to reveal this. Naturally, this is an awful practice.

However, what matters for us is that the company will almost always say that they do have information. That is enough to damage someone’s reputation. Although most databases do not list decisions about consumer credit or consumer credit employment insurance. These databases do house a ton of useful information.

Thanks to our new privacy solution, people no longer have to worry about this. Or about being listed on the site. You are able to quickly remove your criminal records and email address. As well as links to your social media and much more in as little as a few weeks!

People search websites such as Instant Checkmate offer low-cost background reports for employers. It is also useful for credit advisors, business associates, and anyone who has $10-15 and a stable internet connection. Cancel your account today before your information is stolen on the dark web.

Removing Content From Instant Checkmate with EraseMugshots

People who have worked with EraseMugshots, by and large, are people who have been arrested in the past. What they are looking for is a chance to rebuild their lives, having served their debt to the community. While they have the opportunity to approach each individual website, this is a time-consuming activity.

This method is also a very expensive one as well. Removing your information for credit, employment, insurance, tenant, or even online dating is a smart decision for anyone. Completed the hard work for you, EraseMugshots has been rated #1 in mugshot removals online. The company checks and removes listings from all the different websites that hold criminal records.

Other such information, for a simple, easy to manage, payment. Listing all the websites you can remove from. Showing the extent of the work that they have accomplished. Instant Checkmate is a public record search service home to millions of public records. Eliminate yours from their database by contacting us today. Cancel your account today to keep your private and personal information out of the hands of cybercriminals.

EraseMugshots Helps To Protect The Reputation Of Its 10,000 Customers Over The Last 8 Years

Posted on October 15, 2022October 4, 2023 by Adam

EraseMugshots is a company set up with a particular goal in mind: to enable people to get rid of their online arrest records and mugshots and protect their reputation. We do this legally, understanding that these records will always be a matter of public access, but believing that they should not be accessible by anybody with an internet connection.

Hence, while we cannot remove them from the databases of government records or of the courthouses, we can remove them from the internet and help protect your reputation.

1,900 Satisfied Customers and Counting

The company has proudly announced that it has already been successful in helping 1,900 customers. Indeed, our company offers a 100% satisfaction guarantee, and we have never had a case in which they couldn’t provide the service.

We offer a quick, effective, and private solution to ensure that people’s good reputation is not destroyed by past mistakes that can be accessed online. We are fully open and transparent about their methods, which are completely above board, and our goal is complete satisfaction for each of their clients, which they have now achieved 1,900 times.

For their 1,900 satisfied customers, a total of 16,139 files about them were removed, which is an impressive number of nearly 10 files per person.

EraseMugshots’ staff are all highly professional and experienced in all things about the internet, which has enabled them to achieve what is required of them. In fact, between them, they have over 230 years of combined experience.

The Process to Protect Your Reputation

To remove clients’ mugshots and arrest records, the company starts by completing a full web presence analysis. This will allow us to determine which files are available online so that they know where to start working on and never miss a file.

Once we know where we have to work on, Erase Mugshots professionals will start to get rid of the different arrest records. Our team offers a total removal solution, which means that once the records are gone, they are gone for good. One of the reasons why we have been able to have so many happy customers is because we guarantee to achieve this within 72 hours.

Once those records have been removed, EraseMugshots gets to work on cleaning up the search engines, namely Google, Yahoo!, and Bing. We do this by contacting them directly, requesting that any remaining traces of the records, including links and images, are removed from their search engine.

This ensures that they can no longer be found through historic internet searches as well.

What Differentiates EraseMugShots from Others

There are many companies that promise to protect your reputation the same way as EraseMugshots. However, what sets us apart is their 100% satisfaction guarantee. Further, we offer affordable monthly payment plans.

And, at all times, we offer a service that is very effective and very quick, and always 100% private.

All 1,900 customers can attest to the fact that links to mugshot and arrest record sources have been fully eliminated. This means that those records are now impossible to find it online.

The key result is that customer privacy and reputation are completely restored. Indeed, once something is truly removed from the internet, it will be as if it never existed. This allows people to get back their lives and protect their reputation or the long haul.

It has been said that once something is on the internet, it can never be removed, but this is not entirely true. By focusing on search engine removal, rather than reverse search engine optimization (SEO), where links are simply pushed down in the search results, EraseMugshots ensures that a file is truly removed from the internet, never to be found again.

We do this by putting search engine results in second place. First, they terminate the actual websites that the mugshots or arrest records were on or at least the page. Once that has been completed, they simply ask the search engines to update their records so the information can longer be found.

What our clients have been particularly satisfied with, is that we offer long-term results. Once files have been removed and the process has been completed, files have never returned at a later stage.

This is because EraseMugshots offers a total removal solution, rather than simply hiding something or pushing it back. The importance of achieving this for individuals is as huge as finding this type of negative information online. This could make it difficult for them to find a job or a relationship, or to build customers for their own business.

Protect Reputation with EraseMugshots.com

We clean up search results and help protect your reputation for the long-term. Call

866-601-6803

today to learn more.

Expunction Does Not Mean You are in the Clear

Posted on May 3, 2022October 17, 2022 by Adam

Expunctions often seem like the silver bullet you need to erase a criminal record from the public record. With almost a third of adults being arrested by the age of 23, a lot of people are finding it hard to find a job and to rent a home. The expungement process is quite a simple thing to understand. It means that your criminal records are no longer accessible to the public via the courts. But expunction doesn’t mean you’re in the clear.

What Does Expunction Actually Cover?

Once you have had your criminal record successfully expunged, nobody can go to the courts and find out that you have received a conviction for the offense in question.

Previously, this meant that you were essentially completely clean and a background check would reveal no criminal convictions. The problem is that this process has failed to keep up with the digital age.

It Doesn’t Cover Online Articles and Blogs

For example, you live in a small town and you got a misdemeanor a few years back. It naturally made a random local news page online. Years later you had that conviction expunged from your record.

The problem is that the local news page that originally published the story is under no obligation to remove their story or any of the details.

Someone performing a background check can simply look up the story and find out that you were convicted, despite the expunction.

Private Background Check Companies have a Way Around Expunction

It’s also true that expunction only determines the result of a background check in the future. Employers that enlist a private background check company to look up a prospective hire and still see that expunged record.

Why is this the case?

Court records are downloadable and these companies periodically download the latest records. Performing a background check will uncover all personal pieces of information about someone.

What Can You Do About It?

In the cyber age, the role of the expunction is nowhere near as powerful as it once was. It doesn’t apply to people talking online or records that were downloaded before the expunction became active. That’s why you’re not in the clear just because you were successful.

So what can you do about it?

Most employers will appreciate the honesty and may still decide to not hold it against you.

Last Word – Is an Expungement Still Worth It?

The expungement is still worth it because it reduces the chances of any future damage by having your name appear in the records of the court.

Plus an expungement is far more respectable than having an active criminal record that anyone can access. But there’s no doubt that expungement still has its flaws.

Have you applied for an expungement of your criminal records?

Are All Mugshots Public Record?

Posted on August 13, 2019July 21, 2025 by Adam

Are all mugshots public records? Learn more about mugshots, public records and what you can do to clean up your online image today.

Are all mugshots public records?

Yes and no, depending on the nature and state of the charges.

For example, if you expunged your criminal charges from the record, those documents are no longer accessible to the public or the government.

Unfortunately, most mugshots and criminal records are public record, unless stated otherwise by the courts.

Many Americans struggle with online mugshots, even if they exist because of a wrongful arrest. But at EraseMugshots, we work to give you a second chance and help you regain your footing online.

In this article, we hope to provide you a better understanding of why mugshots are public records and how you can work to remove yours fast.

In the past, you had to visit your local courthouse to obtain legal documents, such as a mugshot, arrest record, or criminal background report. But in 2021, finding those embarrassing photos is all too easy.

Nearly anyone with an internet connection can locate your address, phone number, email, and other private info in just seconds.

And thanks to the infamous websites like BustedMugshots or Mugshots.com, it is now just as easy to locate your mugshot on the web.

All you have to do is Google your name. Public mugshots can be found within minutes, and there are now a variety of free mugshot search tools at your disposal.

So, let’s dive into how this happened and where your personal information might be hiding online.

What is Public Record?

All court documents, from government cases to estate deeds, are usually public records. Such documents are registered by a government office and accessible to residents in the local community.

For example, if you’re interested in buying a new home, you can gather the previous owner’s name fairly quickly. You can generally do this by exploring county land reports at your district or county clerk building. And most of the time, these records can be found online.

Yet, certain documents or data may be redacted because they qualify for privacy or confidentiality exemption clauses within a particular state or federal law.

For example, if you browse a free mugshot search tool or free mugshot lookup database, expunged records likely won’t show up.

Freedom of Information Act: How All Mugshots Are Public Record

In 1966, the Freedom of Information Act, or FOIA, became law. FOIA provides you the freedom to collect public records from a federal agency. This even includes the U.S. State Department.

This is despite whether the agency generated or collected those records. And to obtain this data, you must send a signed application or request to the agency in question.

Additionally, you must describe the data you want to obtain in great detail. Truth be told, there is no special form. All you have to do is ask.

Under the FOIA, you can inquire about any public records created or gathered by that specific agency. You may also be asked to pay a fee, although this is rare.

Exclusions From FOIA & Public Mugshots

Your freedom to collect reports under FOIA is not without limits. This is why most free mugshots search tools are still around today. There are no laws banning them from distributing your image online.

Certain documents may be excluded from public records under special conditions. For instance, busted mugshots Arizona data will remove any dismissed cases or expunged records upon request.

Mugshots remain public until you expunge or seal your case. Otherwise, it would end in an unwanted invasion of privacy or become a violation of national security.

Using Free Mugshot Lookup Tools to Update Inmate Mugshots

Commonly, a public record is a report filed with any particular city, county, state, or federal office. In layman’s terms, public records are simply official documents that anyone can access.

Public records also come in many forms. These can include anything from maps and recordings to films, photographs, tapes, software, letters, books, and more.

Court records are a popular version of public records. For instance, if you discover that your next-door neighbor was once convicted for a violent domestic charge, you can request a copy of that court record to learn more about the event.

However, in some cases, these findings can only be found online.

Florida and Maryland permit the general public to search for the following within their database:

Civil
Criminal
& Traffic Records

You can hunt online for a person’s name, case number, or home address.

What’s more: you can even obtain copies of transcripts from your hearing and trial (Florida only). Additionally, you can use the internet to find bankruptcy info using the national database called PACER.

stack of criminal record binders — Mugshots Public Record

Why Are Mugshots Public Record Even Before the Verdict?

Mugshots can help searchers trying to find people who are on the run. Mugshots can also warn locals about dangerous individuals once they’ve been released or potentially pose a threat.

So, there is a good reason to share some mugshots.

Our justice system helps ensure transparency, as demanded by the Constitution. Any attempt to hold mugshots privately would end in lawsuits by those affected.

That said, a 2016 federal court ruling ordered federal mugshots to be no longer accessible under the federal FOIA. However, this did not change much.

This is somewhat the perception of the harm that mugshots can create when online. The court clearly states websites that put mugshots online in its analysis. Mugshots.com being one of the leading mugshot publication websites was included on that list.

Some states have passed laws to limit the number of mugshots prior to a conviction. One of these states is New Jersey.

The entire idea of public records is to bypass the government from collecting money from people. It’s also to restrict the abuse of power.

It was understood that making records public would better protect individuals.

But, it may also still create significant harm in our current digital era.

The internet goes both ways: people want to be able to locate whatever information they want. But when the information makes them look bad, there is an uproar.

As U. S. citizens, we have the freedom to identify problems and express ourselves almost without limit.

But allowing others to post negatively about you online can have serious consequences. This includes mugshot sites, which can cause you lasting emotional, financial and career damage.

Remove Free Public Criminal Record Checks

Mugshots normally begin to surface online at about two weeks after the arrest. Approaching these mugshot publications immediately provides you leverage while helping to remove criminal documents from public records.

With advanced background checks, it is possible that your criminal history will one day reveal itself. Websites such as WhitePages or Spokeo reveal everything from your name, criminal history, relatives, home addresses, and more.

Removing online mugshots and public records is our business.

What’s more: Our mugshot removal team takes steps to de-index those negative links from search results immediately following your mugshot removal.

Generally, it takes Google a week to refresh its search results and show a clean online image.

Read more about how to remove your mugshots and arrest records in Florida.

Remove Public Mugshots Today with EraseMugshots

There are many reasons why you would want to restore your background report to its former glory and clean up bad search results.

To learn more about how to remove public records and mugshots online, please fill out the form below. Our team will contact you as soon as possible.

Learn how to effectively remove mugshots online (especially those on busted mugshots Arizona).