Every background check runs on one assumption: that you're checking the right person. Identity verification is what confirms that. It's why it has to happen first, not get squeezed in as a formality before the "real" checks start.
Get the identity wrong, and everything after it is wrong too. A clean criminal search doesn't mean much if it ran against the wrong file.
It's usually a mix of a few things, not one single step.
None of this tells you if someone's a good hire. It tells you that you're looking at the right file before you spend money finding out.
A criminal check, an employment check, an education check. They all run against a name, date of birth, and SSN you handed the provider. If that identity is off, the search still comes back. It's just clean for the wrong person.
You didn't screen your candidate. You screened a stranger who happens to share a name with them.
Say you're hiring a Michael Johnson. There are thousands of them in county court records across the country. Without a verified SSN and date of birth narrowing the search first, a criminal check can miss a record that actually belongs to your candidate, or worse, attach someone else's record to their report.
Identity verification is what narrows a common name down to one specific person before any other search runs. Skip it, and you're asking a database to guess.
Sometimes the mismatch isn't an accident. Synthetic identity fraud stitches a real SSN, often one that's barely been used, to a made-up name and birthdate. On paper, it reads like a real person with a thin, clean history.
That's exactly the problem. A background check that comes back spotless on a synthetic identity isn't good news. It usually just means the fraud worked, and nobody checked the identity underneath it.
I get why it feels skippable. It looks like paperwork standing between you and the checks that seem like they matter more. But rushing it doesn't save time. It just moves the problem to after you've already hired someone.
Fixing a bad hire is a much worse conversation than adding a day to your screening process.
One more thing: exactly what you can require here, especially anything involving biometrics, varies by state. Check current rules with your provider or a lawyer before you lock in a process. This is an area where the law moves faster than most employers expect.
Treat identity verification as the foundation, not a line item. Every other report you order is only as good as the identity it's attached to.