[Foundation-l] Foundation Discretion on Personnel Matters

Thomas Dalton thomas.dalton at gmail.com
Sat Dec 15 16:34:13 UTC 2007


On 15/12/2007, Alison Wheeler <wikimedia at alisonwheeler.com> wrote:
> On Sat, December 15, 2007 06:53, Mike Godwin wrote:
> > I can confirm that the Foundation has retained an independent firm
> > that conducts criminal background checks, consistent with state and
> > federal law in the USA.
>
> This is, clearly, good and sensible practice. I am, however, noting that
> http://wikimediafoundation.org/wiki/Job_openings is clearly targeted at a
> world-wide base of possible applicants. How would a USA-based organisation
> (such as the firm you have retained) be able to carry out any criminal
> checks for such applicants outwith the USA? In the case of the UK, and I
> am sure other European and World countries, such information is not freely
> available to others than the law enforcement organisations of those
> countries. Or is it intended that only US-citizens could be accepted for
> any staff position with the WMF?

You can do background checks ("CRB checks") in the UK. I think you
need to person's permission to run it, and I don't know how much
detail you get, but you can certainly find out if someone has a
criminal record. Whether the US company the WMF has hired knows how to
do background checks in other countries, I don't know, but it's
certainly possible.



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