How to Do a Background Check on Someone in Canada (2026)

Can You Run a Background Check on Someone Else in Canada?

This is one of the most common questions we receive, and the answer involves an important legal distinction. In Canada, you cannot run a criminal record check on another person without their written consent.

PIPEDA (the Personal Information Protection and Electronic Documents Act) and provincial privacy legislation require authorization before accessing or disclosing personal information — including criminal record data. The RCMP's CPIC database is accessible only to authorized police services, accredited screening organizations, and individuals checking their own records.

This means:

If you're an employer: You can legally run a criminal record check on a job candidate — but only after they provide written consent. The consent must be clear, specific, and voluntary.

If you're a landlord: You can request that a prospective tenant provide a criminal record check as part of their rental application. You cannot run the check yourself without their consent. The tenant orders the check and shares the results with you.

If you're a private individual: You cannot order a CPIC criminal record check on a partner, a neighbour, a new friend, or anyone else without their consent. Attempting to do so through unofficial channels is illegal.

Anyone marketing a service that claims to let you run a criminal background check on someone in Canada without their knowledge or consent is almost certainly not searching the actual CPIC database — and may be violating privacy law.

Legal Ways to Check Someone's Background in Canada

There are several legitimate options available, depending on what you're trying to verify:

Ask Them to Order Their Own Check and Share Results

This is the most reliable and legally clean approach. The person orders their own criminal record check through SafeHire, receives the results within 15 minutes, and shares the PDF with you. This ensures they know a check is being conducted (required under Canadian privacy law) and that the results come from the actual CPIC database.

For employers, this self-serve approach is increasingly common and eliminates consent documentation complexity.

Court Records Search

Criminal court proceedings in Canada are largely public. Provincial court websites in some jurisdictions allow searches by name or case number for concluded cases. However, coverage is incomplete, and not all provinces have online portals. The availability and depth of court records varies significantly:

Ontario Court of Justice: Limited online search functionality
BC Court Services Online: Searchable civil and some criminal proceedings
Federal Court and Supreme Court of Canada: Decisions published on CanLII

Court record searches are not equivalent to a criminal record check. They may not capture all convictions, may show charges that were ultimately withdrawn, and do not reflect the CPIC database directly.

Canadian Legal Information Institute (CanLII)

CanLII (canlii.org) is a free online database of Canadian court decisions and legislation. You can search for cases involving a specific person by name. This is useful for researching whether someone has been involved in significant legal proceedings, but it is not a substitute for a criminal record check and does not reflect the full CPIC record.

Land Title Searches

Provincial land registry offices maintain public records of property ownership. If you need to verify that someone owns (or has owned) a property, a land title search is available through the relevant provincial registry — typically for a small fee. This is commonly used in real estate transactions and civil litigation.

Corporate Registry Searches

Provincial corporate registries are public databases of business registrations, incorporations, and directorship records. If you want to verify that someone is (or was) the director of a company, this information is available online:

Ontario: ontario.ca/page/ontario-business-registry
BC: bcregistry.ca
Alberta: alberta.ca/corporate-registry

Corporate registry searches can also reveal if a company is in good standing or has been dissolved.

Professional Regulatory Body Searches

If you're hiring someone for a role that requires a professional licence — nurse, engineer, real estate agent, lawyer, mortgage broker — you can check their licence status through the relevant regulatory college or association. These databases are publicly accessible and show whether a licence is in good standing, suspended, or revoked:

Ontario College of Nurses: nursingontario.ca
Engineers Ontario: peo.on.ca
Law Society of Ontario: lso.ca
Real Estate Council of Ontario: reco.on.ca

Similar bodies exist in every province for each regulated profession.

Social Media and Open-Source Research

Reviewing someone's publicly available social media profiles, news articles, and online presence is legal. Employers and landlords routinely do this as part of due diligence. Limitations include: information may be outdated, incomplete, or misleading, and it provides no information about criminal records.

Hire a Licensed Private Investigator

If you have a legitimate need to investigate someone's background for legal purposes, a licensed private investigator (PI) can conduct background research within legal limits. PIs cannot access CPIC without consent either, but they can conduct surveillance, public records searches, and interviews that may yield relevant information. Use only licensed investigators — licensing requirements vary by province.

How Employers Run Background Checks on Candidates

For Canadian employers, the standard process for conducting a criminal record check is:

Step 1: Provide the candidate with a consent form — The form must clearly explain what information is being collected, why, and how it will be used. The candidate signs voluntarily.

Step 2: The candidate completes the check — Either through a provider like SafeHire (where the employer sends a link and the applicant completes the check online), or through a traditional police service.

Step 3: Results are delivered — Depending on the provider, results go to the employer directly, or the applicant shares the results PDF.

Step 4: Assessment — The employer reviews the results in the context of the specific role. Human rights law requires individual assessment, not blanket exclusion.

For employers screening multiple candidates regularly, SafeHire offers a business portal that streamlines the consent and results delivery process.

How Landlords Can Screen Tenants

Landlords in Canada have the right to request a criminal record check as part of the rental application process — but the tenant must consent and typically orders the check themselves. The process:

Include a request for a criminal record check in your standard rental application form
The prospective tenant orders their own check from SafeHire and shares the PDF
Review the results in the context of your specific property and tenancy

Note that provincial human rights codes restrict how landlords can use criminal record information. You generally cannot refuse a tenancy solely based on a criminal record without assessing its relevance to the tenancy. Pardoned offences cannot be used as a basis for refusal.

For a complete guide to this topic, see: Tenant Background Checks in Canada — A Landlord's Guide.

What You Cannot Do

To be completely clear about the legal limits:

You cannot access CPIC without consent. The RCMP's national criminal records database is not publicly accessible. No legitimate service allows you to search it for someone else without their authorization.

You cannot use someone's SIN to search records. Social Insurance Numbers are protected personal information. Using or attempting to use someone's SIN to access records without authorization is illegal.

You cannot access sealed youth records. Records from offences committed while under 18 are sealed under the Youth Criminal Justice Act and are not accessible to employers, landlords, or private individuals.

You cannot access medical or mental health records. Medical information is private and protected under both federal and provincial legislation. Mental health apprehensions may be disclosed in some vulnerable sector checks, but only through authorized channels with proper consent.

You cannot purchase third-party data claiming to show Canadian criminal records. US-based background check services that claim to search Canadian criminal records are almost never searching CPIC. They typically compile data from social media, public directories, and US court records — none of which constitute a Canadian criminal record check.

FAQ

Can I check if someone has a criminal record in Canada for free?

No — there is no free, legitimate way to check someone else's criminal record in Canada without their consent. Even with consent, a proper CPIC check costs $64.99 online through SafeHire, or $25–85 at a police station. Be wary of services claiming to offer free Canadian criminal background checks — they are not searching CPIC.

Can a landlord run a criminal record check without telling the tenant?

No. Canadian privacy law requires landlords to obtain the tenant's written consent before any background check is conducted. Conducting a check without consent could expose the landlord to a privacy complaint with the relevant provincial privacy commissioner.

Can an employer run a background check after hiring?

Yes, with consent. Some employers conduct checks at onboarding, and some conduct periodic rechecks for positions with ongoing security requirements. Any post-hire check still requires written consent.

What if someone refuses to consent to a background check?

An employer or landlord can make consent a condition of employment or tenancy. If someone refuses, the employer or landlord can decline to proceed with the application — as long as the requirement is applied consistently and is proportionate to the role or tenancy.

Are there any public databases to check someone's criminal record in Canada?

No public database provides access to CPIC criminal record data. Some court records are publicly available through provincial court websites and CanLII, but these are not equivalent to a criminal record check and have significant gaps.

Can I check if a contractor or tradesperson has a criminal record?

You can ask them to provide a current criminal record check from SafeHire. Reputable contractors should not object to this request for significant home renovation or access-to-your-property work. You cannot run the check yourself without their consent.