Is my criminal record public online?
- If you have any record, probably yes — in more places than you'd expect. Court records are public in most US jurisdictions, and commercial background-check sites scrape and republish them for anyone to search.
- A sealed or expunged record, a dismissed charge, or an arrest that never led to a conviction can keep surfacing on these sites long after the official record is cleared.
- A free Delist scan shows you which sites carry a background-check report about you. The court record itself is public by law — the commercial copies aren't, and those are what Delist files to pull down.
What "public" actually means for a criminal record
There are two very different things people mean when they ask whether their criminal record is public, and keeping them straight is the whole game.
The first is the official record — the court docket, the filing, the disposition held by a county clerk, a state repository, or the FBI. In most US jurisdictions those are public records by law, and courts have moved much of it online. That record is not something a removal service can take down. It's public on purpose, and the only way to change it is a legal one: sealing or expungement through the court.
The second is the commercial copy — the version a background-check or people-search company scraped, packaged with your name, address, age, and relatives, and now sells to anyone with a few dollars and a search box. That copy isn't a public record. It's a product built on top of one. And that's the part you can do something about.
Delist works on the second kind. It can't touch the court's own file, but it finds the commercial sites republishing it and files to pull each listing.
Is there a background check report about me?
If you've ever been arrested, charged, or convicted, the answer is almost certainly yes — and often in more than one place. Background-check and people-search sites don't wait for you to apply for anything. They scrape court portals, arrest logs, and booking records continuously, then compile whatever they find into a profile keyed to your name.
A typical commercial report can pull together:
- Arrests and charges — including ones that were dropped, dismissed, or never prosecuted.
- Court filings and dispositions — criminal, traffic, and sometimes civil cases like evictions or small claims.
- Mugshots — booking photos scraped from police and county logs, republished regardless of the outcome.
- Identity glue — your address history, age, phone number, and relatives, which is what ties a record to you and makes the profile searchable.
You don't even need a record to get flagged. Wrong-person matches on a common name are routine on these sites, and a stranger reading the report rarely stops to check whether the John Miller they're looking at is the right one.
See which sites carry a report about you. Free background check removal check, no card needed.
Run my free exposure scan →Why records show up even after they're sealed or dismissed
This is the part that catches people off guard, and it's the one worth understanding.
Sealing or expungement clears the government's copy of a record. It does not reach the commercial sites that scraped that record months or years earlier. Nothing forces a background-check company to go back and re-check the court to see whether a case was dismissed. So the old data keeps sitting on their site, visible to anyone, long after the official file says otherwise.
The same lag hits arrests that never led to a conviction. A charge gets dropped, the case ends, and the arrest log — already copied — keeps circulating. To an employer or a landlord skimming a report, a years-old dismissed charge can read exactly like a conviction.
Clearing the source record is a real and worthwhile step. But it only finishes the job if you also chase down the copies. Each site has its own opt-out, and new scrapes can put you back. This is the recurring, per-site work Delist takes on: file the removals, then keep filing as the data comes back.
What a public record costs you
A criminal record that's freely searchable online follows you into decisions you don't get to be in the room for.
Employers and landlords run background checks routinely. When the report comes from a regulated consumer reporting agency, the Fair Credit Reporting Act (FCRA) sets rules on what can be reported and how old it can be. But a lot of what surfaces first in a search comes from unregulated people-search sites that tell users not to rely on them for hiring or housing — a disclaimer that lets them sidestep the FCRA, right before someone uses the data for exactly that.
Beyond the paperwork, there's the plain reputational hit. A date searches your name. A neighbor does. A client does. A dismissed charge or an old mugshot, stripped of context, becomes the first thing a stranger learns about you. The record may be inaccurate, resolved, or someone else's entirely — and it lands the same either way.
What Delist can and can't remove
Straight answer, because this is where honesty matters most.
What Delist can't do: take down the official court record. That's a public record, held by the government, and it stays put. If you want the source record itself cleared, sealing or expungement through the court is the path — usually with an attorney or a legal-aid clinic. It's worth pursuing where you qualify.
What Delist does: go after the commercial pile built on top of that record. Delist finds the background-check and people-search sites republishing your name alongside arrests, charges, and mugshots, and files removals against each one. When a site relists you — and they do — Delist catches it on the next scan and re-files. It also removes the address, phone, age, and relatives that these sites use to tie a record to you, which is what makes the whole profile searchable in the first place.
Delist won't make a public record disappear. Nothing legitimate can. What it does is pull the copies that turn a court filing into a one-click report, and keep pulling them as they resurface.
How to reduce your exposure
The work splits into two tracks — the source record and the commercial copies — and you can move on both.
- See what's out there. Start with a free scan so you know which sites carry a report tied to your name, and what each one is publishing. You can't remove what you can't see.
- Opt out of the aggregators. Background-check, people-search, and mugshot sites each have their own removal process. Submit to each one, or let Delist handle the per-site submissions and the follow-up.
- Pursue sealing or expungement for the source. If your record qualifies, clearing the government's copy is the strongest step for the underlying file. A local attorney, a public defender's office, or a legal-aid clinic can tell you what's eligible in your state.
- Keep re-checking. New scrapes and new filings bring records back. Ongoing re-scanning and re-submission is what holds the line over time.