February 1st 2026: Don't be caught frozen in time. Monitor Continuously
The History of VINE and How CRAs Became Involved
The VINE system—short for Victim Information and Notification Everyday—was created in the early 2000s to address a serious gap in the U.S. criminal justice system. Victims of crime often had no reliable way to know when an offender was booked, transferred, or released from custody. Notifications were handled manually, if they happened at all, and missed updates could place victims in real danger.
VINE was built as an automated, event-driven notification network. By connecting directly to jail management systems, departments of corrections, and some court systems, it could monitor custody and case-status changes in near real time. When an event occurred, registered users were notified automatically. From the beginning, the system was designed to answer a narrow but critical question: Has something changed? It was never intended to explain the legal meaning or final outcome of that change.
As victims’ rights legislation expanded and public-safety technology improved, VINE spread rapidly across the country. States and counties adopted it as a standard service, and over time, it became one of the largest criminal-justice notification infrastructures in the United States. Its strength was speed and coverage, particularly around arrests, bookings, incarceration status, and release events. Accuracy at the identity or disposition level, however, was not its primary design goal.
Years later, the background screening industry began confronting a different problem. Employers, especially in healthcare, transportation, and regulated environments, started asking what happened after a background check was completed. Annual or bi-annual rescreens felt slow in a world where risk could emerge at any time. That pressure led to the rise of what the industry began calling “continuous monitoring.”
In searching for ways to identify risk events sooner, some consumer reporting companies and monitoring vendors took notice of systems like VINE, not as a source of reportable data, but as an early-warning signal. A booking or custody event could indicate that something warranted further review, prompting a new court search or investigation through traditional, verifiable sources.
As monitoring products became more marketable, some vendors began aggregating public safety data feed often including VINE-adjacent information, and packaging them into turnkey solutions for CRAs. This is where important compliance questions surfaced. Arrests do not equal convictions, custody does not imply guilt, and notification systems are not built around employment screening standards or Fair Credit Reporting Act requirements.
Important pieces of information must be maintained and recognized by the end user to ensure a standard of compliance is understood and met. End users who chose to utilize monitoring products have a heightened obligation to produce and keep updated an employee list with the needed information. Additionally end users should review with their legal counsel to have verification of disclosure granting monitoring capabilities by the end-user. Monitoring can be used as an enhancing tool to take the consumer report picture of an overall employee or applicant to a more maximum accurate view due to the level of searching. A simplistic breakdown of what could be argued as most accurate could be shown through three levels of varying end user report policies.
Basic - End User #1 only runs one background check at the time the employee is onboarded. No further checks run for the life of the employment
Intermediate - End User #2 runs a background check at the time of employment and runs a once a year check to see if anything happened in the last 365 days that could be reportable
Advanced - End User #3 runs a background check at the time of employment, a yearly background check, and also enrolls in monitoring services so they can be notified in a timely manner of when to run an updated check due to the possibility of something being able to be reported.
Today, VINE remains influential but firmly adjacent to background screening. Its legacy is not that it became a consumer reporting tool, but that it demonstrated the value of event-driven awareness. When used correctly, it can signal that something may have occurred, nothing more. In the background screening world, verification, context, and court-level confirmation must always come next.
DISCLAIMER
The information and opinions expressed are for educational purposes only and are based on current practice, industry-related knowledge and business expertise. The information provided shall not be construed as legal advice, express or implied.