Searching in the United Kingdom and how it differs from the United States

While the overall method of finding people is the same the world over, each country has a different legal system and slightly different laws governing this activity.

It follows that each country has different sources of information and a differing attitude to the privacy of the people you are searching for. Attitudes also vary to the profession of Private Investigator!

As an example, in the UK there is no Social Security number that we have any right to do a search on. Instead searches are based on the name, address, date of birth, occupation etc.

What you can look up:

• You can look up the Register of Electors online, though since 2004 we have all been able to have our names removed from this list.
• You can look up telephone numbers, though being ex-directory is an increasingly popular choice.
• You can look up the owners of any property if it is registered.
• You can look up the details of those who run a limited company.
• You can look up bankruptcies and those with a County Court Judgement against them.
• You can check births, marriages, divorces, deaths. and look at their wills.

Some searches have to be made using real paper documents in archives where others may be looked at online.

What you cannot look up:

• A person’s criminal record without their consent
• Adoption files
• A driver’s licence
• Passport details
• Medical records
• Bank details
• Credit reference unless with their consent

There are two major players in the UK people finding business that are publicly accessible. They are http://www.192.com/ and http://www.tracesmart.co.uk/ 192.com is an online telephone directory enquiries with the electoral register as an add-on. Searches can be made online. The directory enquiries service is free, but all else is charged for. They also sell CD Rom datasets of the current year’s edited list. For extra charges you can look up historical data too and property ownership and births, marriages and deaths as well.

TraceSmart is similar, but it has made big strides in making up for the loss of the details of voters who have chosen to remain off the public list. They have achieved this by buying in data from other sources. Included in this data are an ever increasing number of dates of birth, which can make narrowing down the list of possible matches a great deal easier.

Both datasets enable the searcher to search in different ways. For example:

• By name and geographical area
• By names of two or more people living together
• And in the case of TraceSmart, by date of birth

You can look up the Indexes of births, marriages and death online in several places and from these entries you can order a copy of the original certificate. You can do this at Ancestry at http://www.ancestry.co.uk/ and at Find My Past at http://www.findmypast.com/

In my view, the US is the most open and accessible country when it comes to finding information online. The UK is much more restrictive, but there are many more countries where access to information is even more difficult. Nonetheless, in every country in the world you can still locate people, but in many cases it will involve the old fashioned skills of letter writing, knocking on doors and placing adverts in the press!

I hope this helps you in your searches.

Giles Higgitt
UK People Search News