Pipl

Billing itself as “The most comprehensive people search on the web” Pipl is a pretty neat tool.  The big advantage of this search tool over other more common ones is that Pipl searches deep web databases to compile data matching your queries.  The results are sometimes surprisingly detailed.  Pipl searches some popular social networking sites as well as email addresses, pdf documents, webpages and whitepage listings.  I found it worthy of addition to my bookmarks.

Emporis.com: Able to leap tall buildings in a single bound

Empois.com is a self-described “large and free-to-use website about buildings.”  That’s true.  They host a massive database with information on buildings (large and small) in over 60,000 cities.  Much of the content comes from public records, vendors, and research companies but Emporis.com also solicits information from it’s user community.  You can browse cities for the tallest buildings and view details of each.  The database hosts varying levels of detail about specific buildings but it generally includes the year built, a photo (popular buildings have anywhere from a few dozen to a few thousand photos), the architect and builder information, number of floors, and bordering streets.  Sometimes lat/long geodata is provided as well.  Another cool feature is that the database contains information on buildings currently under construction and even projects that were planned but abandoned or put on hold.  Great resource to add to the online investigator’s toolkit.

What’s Up Doc?

The state of Florida is well-known in the public records arena for offering up all kinds of records, making skip tracing and background investigations that much easier.  One tremendous source of information that is often overlooked is the free data downloads offered by the Florida Department of Health, Division of Medical Quality Assurance.  You’ll find data files that list licensed medical practitioners – from acupuncturists to doctors to pharmacists to therapists, nurses, and all other types of medical providers.    They even have a list of people that have requested a license application – even if they didn’t submit it yet.  And they have a database of health clinics.  If you’re into data as much as I am, you can have a field day with this information.

CriminalSearches.com

I posted a question on LinkedIn a few months ago regarding the rollout of CriminalSearches.com.  This tool conducts a nationwide search for criminal records via name search.  Advanced search functions are available by address, date of birth or age range.  The interface is slick and there are cool mapping functions.  But based on my own informal survey, user satisfaction is mixed.  The tool aggregates data from multiple disconnected sources which makes it a great all-around resource but the data seems very inconsistent and not comprehensive.  While it does contain minor offenses like traffic infractions in some jurisdictions, it lacks comprehensive data that you would think would be included – like felony criminal convictions – in others.  Overall, I think we’ll see more tools like this emerge as function melds with content.  Hopefully the data will improve over time.