FAQs

Adverse media monitoring, also referred to as negative news screening, is any form of behavioural misconduct or less-than-favourable information on an individual or business that can be found across multiple online sources, including traditional news outlets and unstructured sources.

We live in a world where the wrong business associations can destabilize your brand, sink your stock prices, erode shareholder value and make organizations non-compliant with regulatory bodies. Valital exists to help organizations make better, more confident decisions about the people and entities with whom they do business.

Standard background checks typically include information found in databases. Valital’s AI-powered platform scours fast-moving, dynamic open-source intelligence (OSINT) to flag universally recognized misconducts on individuals: harassment, discrimination, financial crimes/fraud, violence, addiction. Databases will not typically capture some of this nuanced information and if they do, it’s often days after an incident occurs. With Valital, businesses have access to real-time information.

Valital’s platform is focused primarily on open-source intelligence (OSINT). If a database is publicly available, our AI will retrieve information from there.

Valital searches only publicly available, open-source intelligence (OSINT). It finds the information that anyone would be able to find if they had time to pore over millions of pieces of online information. That’s where AI comes in. AI does what no human being could possibly do.

We are committed to using AI responsibly and ethically. We design, develop, test, train and operate AI algorithms based on inclusive and representative data. Valital uses AI for a clear and transparent purpose, and we believe AI must be explainable, interpretable and transparent.

Valital uses Natural Language Processing (NLP), a form of AI that enables computers to extract language from unstructured text. The AI learns human language and uses content and context to perform real-time search and pulse analyses of online media, blogs, and tweets, flagging misconducts related to universally recognized misbehaviours and ESG-related risk factors. Valital’s NLP is trained in English and French. No automatic translation tool is used.

Valital extracts, filters and analyzes adverse media on both individuals and entities. For validations of individuals, our algorithms flag universally recognized misconducts related to financial crimes/fraud, violence, discrimination, harassment and addiction. For entities, we analyze adverse media based on ESG (Environment, Social and Governance) factors.

As it pertains to the screening of individuals, Valital is designed to help teams detect, mitigate and respond to reputation risk posed by business stakeholders. The platform is specifically designed to help teams make better, more confident decisions about the people with whom they do business. Valital is most effective when used as part of an organization’s KYC, third-party verification and insider risk programs as well as other due diligence processes.

It depends. In some instances, our clients are so pleased with the accuracy of Valital’s results that they’ve opted to shelve some of their own customized tools. Others use Valital as part of a robust risk management process. Some teams that conducted manual research using search engines that opted to use Valital for a more efficient and standardized approach.

Any organization that is concerned about reputation risk and having immediate access to fast-moving adverse online media on designated individuals and entities will want to integrate Valital into their risk management processes.Valital is most effective when used as part of an organization’s KYC, third-party verification, due diligence, enhanced background checks and nsider risk programs as well as other due diligence processes.

Insiders are often the biggest security threat for any organization. An insider is anyone with knowledge or access to an organization’s infrastructure (both physical and computer networks). When used as part of a company’s risk detection program, Valital’s LiveUpdate feature will continuously monitor an individual’s online footprint, ensuring you’re not caught off guard when questionable behaviour occurs.

Search algorithms change multiple times during the day. Individuals conduct searches differently: some stop after page two of the search engine results page. Some go to page five. In other words, it’s a highly inconsistent process if done manually. And, human beings simply aren’t able to do the level of research needed to find the vast amount of data that is available online. A manual search process is inefficient, time-consuming and inconsistent.

Our NLP flags misconducts related to universally recognized misbehaviours: Discrimination, Fraud, Harassment, Violence and Addiction. It also flags information on litigation that is part of open-sourced intelligence. The AI is trained - in both French and English - to categorize a range of misbehaviours within these 5 broad categories, which means virtually all types of misconduct will be flagged. 

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For entities, our algorithms extract, filter and analyze adverse news based on ESG-related risk factors.

Valital is used primarily for KYC/client acceptance processes, third-party verification and insider risk monitoring as well as other types of due diligence processes.

Because online data is dynamic and rapidly changing, users can activate a live update functionality at any time, for any individual or group of individuals, and receive instant notifications of any adverse online news related to that individual or group. LiveUpdate is also available for screening of entities.

Yes.

Yes, we have a custom API for integration to third-party applications.

Misinformation continues to proliferate on the internet. As a rule, Valital is always assessing and reassessing information sources to ensure they remain credible and relevant to report. We continuously weigh and measure the quality of sources against a strict list of criteria to determine credibility. For each reported news item, we will indicate whether or not a source is credible.

Valital’s ID matching model is designed in such a way that you will need minimal information to conduct a search on an individual. Based on the information, we can determine the strength of the correlation between the data entered and the information available online. If the ID match is under a certain threshold, we will not include those results in your report.

Valital is a Saas-based platform, requiring virtually no implementation set up. Onboarding is almost automatic. You will need an administrator who can assign user management responsibilities.

Yes, in several distinct ways.

Valital is the best value for money, because it is not based on licenses; rather, pricing is based on expected volumes of validations to be performed during the course of 12 months. As such, anyone within the organization that has a need for the tool would be able to use it for that number of validations.