Every check is a bet that you know enough.
The question is not whether a search finds something. The question is whether the result is complete enough, current enough and documented enough to support a decision someone else can review. Before you bring a person on board, subscribe to an investment or take on a mandate, you make a decision with incomplete information. The question is never whether you check – but with what. Your own browser. A language model. A KYC tool that runs in-house anyway. A forensic boutique you keep for the serious case.
Each of these routes answers part of the question “who am I dealing with?” – and none covers it fully. A search result is not a process. A chatbot summary is not a decision record. This page places them: factually, without disparaging the alternatives – each has its place. The point is to find the right place for your question.
Five routes, one question – and five different limits.
The honest answer: you probably need more than one route. For a fast first look, the software often suffices. For the borderline case, the human steps in. For the exception, the boutique. The table shows where the line runs.
| Self-Googling | Language model (e.g. ChatGPT) | KYC / screening tool | Forensic boutique | Internal review by your own team | Indicium report | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| What it does at its core | Sift freely available hits | Summarize existing knowledge, draft text | Sanctions, PEP, watchlist screening | In-depth research by analysts, often with an on-site component | Sift through internal knowledge and available sources | Structured risk examination across the spectrum: automated to analyst-led |
| Source basis | What the search engine shows | Training cut-off, possibly web access – no guarantee of completeness | Defined lists, narrowly drawn | Very broad, case-dependent | Varies by team and time budget – not systematically documented | Broadly based, structurally documented |
| Documentation | None – you keep tabs open | Chat history, not reviewable | List hit log | Detailed report | Notes, not a dated record | Reviewable report, complete for regulators and proceedings |
| False-positive handling | You | You | Rule-based, high hit rate without context | Analyst | Your own team – alongside day-to-day work | Software logic; human final review in the Hybrid- and Boutique-Report |
| Speed | Minutes to hours, without depth | Minutes, no guarantee | Seconds for the list check | Days to weeks | Hours of qualified work per case | Software in minutes · Hybrid/Boutique: days to weeks |
| Best for | First impression | Preparation, drafting | Mandatory regulatory screening | Highly sensitive individual cases | Cases where internal knowledge genuinely covers the question | From fast pre-check to analyst-led depth |
Self-Googling shows what’s visible – not what counts.
Your own research is free, instantly available and often enough for a first impression. It shows the LinkedIn page, the press release, the association register. The problem isn’t what you find – it’s what you don’t find and still take to be complete. An open insolvency in another jurisdiction. A change of managing director that never made it into the German index. A name match that leads you to the wrong person.
And even if you find everything: you have nothing in hand. Twelve open browser tabs are not a report you present to a regulator or a court. This is exactly where the Software-Report comes in – the same speed, but structured, broader, and in the end a reviewable, documented report.
Software-Report: from €79, three reports free to try after your demo →A language model phrases things brilliantly – and stands behind nothing.
Language models are excellent at ordering what exists and putting it into words. For preparing a conversation, structuring an argument, clean phrasing – unbeatable. What they can’t do: stand behind the accuracy of a factual claim about a real person.
A model knows its training cut-off, not yesterday’s entry. It can invent a source that sounds plausible and doesn’t exist. And it keeps no reviewable log of who checked what, when. For a decision with regulatory or procedural significance, that’s the wrong basis – not because the tool is bad, but because it was built for a different task.
The Indicium report uses the strength of automation – speed, breadth, structure – and combines it with what a free language model doesn’t deliver: traceable sources and a document you can present.
This is what a reviewable, documented report looks like →KYC tools answer the mandatory question – not the real one.
A good screening tool is indispensable in regulated business: sanctions lists, PEP status, watchlists – in seconds, verifiable, regulatorily clean. If you need that, keep it. Indicium doesn’t replace it.
But the question “is this person on a list?” is not the same as “who am I dealing with here?” Lists are narrowly drawn and context-poor. They produce plenty of false positives a human must resolve – and they say nothing about the reputational pattern, the quiet entanglement, the friction point that’s on no list and still tips the balance.
The Indicium report operates one level above: a broader risk picture, structurally assessed, with human final review in the Hybrid- and Boutique-Report where context decides. Mandatory screening and risk understanding – one doesn’t preclude the other.
Where the report goes beyond the list check →A forensic boutique is the right answer – to a rare question.
For the highly sensitive individual case there is no substitute for analyst-led in-depth research: the contested matter, the internal investigation with consequences, the deal where a single missed detail costs millions. There, human, experience and time belong in play – and that’s exactly where Indicium too delivers analyst-led work: the Boutique-Report, fully analyst-led.
The point is proportionality. Engaging a boutique for every single check ties up days to weeks and a budget most cases don’t justify. The reality of most organizations: many routine checks, some borderline cases, few genuine exceptions.
This is exactly what the Indicium spectrum is built for – one axis, three depths: the Software-Report solves the bulk in minutes. The Hybrid-Report adds human final review where it gets tight. The Boutique-Report goes to full analyst-led depth when the case demands it. You pay for depth only where depth changes something.
The spectrum: Software · Hybrid · Boutique →We do this in-house – why should we pay?
Because the effort lies not in the research but in the evidence. An internal check typically ties up several hours of qualified work and leaves notes, not a dated record. Weigh your internal hourly rate against EUR 79–299 per report – and against the question of what you can present when someone asks, two years later, what you based your decision on.
What we deliberately do not claim.
No provider on this page – us included – can sell you certainty. We deliberately do not say a report creates certainty about a person. No one serious can promise that. What we deliver is the structured, fully documented basis you can present to a regulator or in proceedings – so your decision is reviewable, even years later.
The difference isn’t in the promise. It’s in what you’re left with: open tabs, a chat history, a list hit – or a reviewable, documented report.
Which report fits your question? →Everything above concerns the report – the snapshot of a check. Indicium Radar is something else: continuous monitoring instead of a one-off check, grown out of our executive-search work to guard against backdoor hires. Currently in early access – with a fixed term, a named alert latency and a price per monitored mandate.
Get to know Radar early access →