Background check – how does it work?

Basically, background checks rely on researching and confirming (rechecking) the information provided by a person. They are used for private purposes, but also as a global verification solution, more commonly known as KYC.

KYC (Know Your Customer) is a general set of guidelines and solutions that help with identity verification. In certain industries and facilities, it is a required procedure.

How to do a background check in 2026? Best Tools & Advice

What other use cases require a background check?

  • During the recruitment process. (This is especially useful for screening remote candidates, where in-person verification is often not possible and employers often combine background checks with AI recruiting software to streamline candidate screening and verification.)
  • For investment or other financial decisions
  • When verifying financial credibility
  • During potential partnership decisions
  • In law enforcement or OSINT investigations
  • For the public authorities’ verification process
  • To detect potential catfishing or fraud

No matter the reason for a background check, it’s important to do it quickly and effectively. Sure, you could manually verify a person’s information by googling it, checking every possible page, or using various public databases.

But in 2026, you don’t need to rely on manual checks, face search can do the job. Let’s see how a face search solutions can help with verification.

Best methods and solutions for accurate background checks in 2026

Lenso.ai for face search

Lenso.ai is definitely one of the best face search tools available online. You can quickly and easily find information about a person or even yourself, if you want to make sure there’s no misleading information about you online.

All you need to do is upload an image to lenso and check the People or Duplicates category. Each image includes the URL where it was originally published, so you can easily locate the source and any additional information.

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For a deeper search, try Research Mode, which lets you explore even more results, up to 10,000.

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There’s also an Alert option: if there are currently few or no matches, you can create an alert and receive notifications whenever a new image appears online.

For more automated searches or to integrate facial recognition into your internal system, you can use lenso’s face search API.

Pixalytica for AI-based KYC reports

Pixalytica is an advanced tool for identity verification. While lenso focuses on face search results, Pixalytica generates a full KYC report based on facial recognition. In both cases, all you need is an image.

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After you upload an image to Pixalytica, you’ll receive a full report in less than 20 seconds, including:

  • name and surname of the person
  • risk factors (appearance in criminal records, connections with suspicious individuals)
  • final summary
  • risk score
  • face search results with URLs showing where the image was originally published

You can also implement this solution within the API and receive reports directly inside your own system.

Explore more verification tools:

5 Best Background check tools in 2026 (Free & Paid)

Author

Julia Mykhailiuk

Marketing Specialist