PBSA, the Professional Background Screening Association (formerly NAPBS), is the background screening industry's own trade and accreditation body. It has more than 750 member companies globally. But "PBSA member" and "PBSA accredited" are two different things, and the gap between them matters when you're evaluating a provider.
Membership in PBSA is open to any background screening company that joins the association. It signals industry participation, not an independent audit of how that company actually operates.
Accreditation is a separate, higher bar: an independent audit against PBSA's Background Screening Credentialing Council standards, covering six specific areas.
Accreditation runs on a five-year cycle, with a year-three surveillance audit in between, so it's a maintained credential, not a single point-in-time check that a company can earn once and stop worrying about.
Background screening carries real compliance exposure for the employer, not just the screening company. A provider that can show current, verifiable PBSA accreditation, not just a membership badge, has been independently audited against the specific practices (data security, FCRA compliance, verification standards) that create that exposure if they're handled poorly. It's one of the more concrete, checkable signals available when comparing providers, which is why All Screeners tracks and displays it directly on provider profiles.