Check Illinois (Consumer Search)
A consumer-facing search platform where users look up contact information, criminal arrest records, property and mortgage data, foreclosures, and more across millions of Illinois public records — with corporate subscription accounts and instant results.
Overview
Check Illinois is a consumer-facing public records search product that lets anyone find contact information, criminal arrest records, property and mortgage details, foreclosures, and more across millions of Illinois public records. Users search by name, phone, PIN, business name, or street address and get results instantly on screen.
The platform is built on top of a database containing tens of millions of records compiled from Illinois county, state, and federal public-record sources, spanning 17 counties including Cook, DuPage, Kane, Lake, and Will.
What it does
Behind a simple search box sits a large, continuously-updated data platform. The product had to make millions of records searchable in seconds, organize them into clear categories, and support paying corporate subscribers — all while staying compliant with public-records regulations.
Working with millions of records
The core engineering challenge here is scale and searchability: ingesting and indexing tens of millions of records across many categories (mortgage, real estate, criminal, misdemeanor, bankruptcies, foreclosures, tax liens, DUI, divorces, probate, business licenses, and more) and returning accurate matches in under two minutes per search.
Results
What we delivered
- Search across 26M+ searchable records spanning 17 Illinois counties
- Multiple search modes: name, phone, PIN, business name, and street address
- Instant on-screen results — searches return in under two minutes per name
- Corporate subscription accounts with secure, stored search history
- Per-county database categories: mortgage, criminal, foreclosures, tax liens, bankruptcies, and more
- City-level background-check landing pages for local SEO