Michigan iCHAT, short for the Internet Criminal History Access Tool, is the Michigan State Police’s public website for running name-based criminal background checks against the state’s central criminal history database. A search costs $10 and returns Michigan felony arrests, felony convictions, and misdemeanor convictions held by the Criminal Justice Information Center.1Michigan State Police. Criminal History Records It is fast, it is open to anyone, and it has real limits that matter before you rely on a result.
Who Runs iCHAT and Why It Exists
iCHAT is operated by the Michigan State Police Criminal Justice Information Center. It gives employers, landlords, government agencies, and private individuals a way to check a person’s Michigan criminal history online rather than through fingerprint submissions or formal records requests.1Michigan State Police. Criminal History Records Results are generated almost immediately after you pay.
What a Search Returns
An iCHAT record includes personal descriptors for the individual along with information on misdemeanor convictions and on felony arrests and convictions.1Michigan State Police. Criminal History Records The distinction between arrests and convictions matters. For misdemeanors, only convictions appear. For felonies, both arrests and convictions appear, even if the arrest never led to a conviction. Each entry typically shows the offense, the date, the court or agency involved, and the disposition.
What iCHAT Does Not Show
iCHAT draws only from the Michigan State Police database. A clean result is not the same as a clean record. The following are not included:1Michigan State Police. Criminal History Records
- Federal crimes prosecuted in federal court, such as drug trafficking, tax fraud, and immigration offenses.
- Convictions from other states, even for someone currently living in Michigan.
- Offenses adjudicated in tribal courts.
- Traffic offenses, which are kept separately by the Secretary of State.
- Juvenile adjudications.
- Local misdemeanors and municipal ordinance violations that were never reported to the state database.
- Records that have been set aside, expunged, or otherwise suppressed.
- Active warrants.
Someone with federal convictions, out-of-state convictions, or recently expunged Michigan convictions can return a blank iCHAT result. Treat the search as what it is: a check of one database, not a full background investigation.
How to Run a Search
Go to the Michigan State Police iCHAT website and create an account. Registration asks for your own identification information and login credentials. Once you are in, you enter the subject’s name and date of birth to run the search.2Michigan State Police. Criminal History Records – Section: Name-Based Background Check using Internet Criminal History Access Tool (ICHAT) The Michigan State Police suggests working through the free tutorial on the iCHAT homepage before your first search.
When a result comes back, compare the personal descriptors on the record against what you already know about the person. Name-based searches can pull up records belonging to someone else with the same or a similar name, and a mismatch in date of birth or physical descriptors is your first signal that the hit may not be your subject.
Cost and Fee Waivers
Each search costs $10, paid through the site’s secure checkout. The fee is not refunded if the search returns no results or if you mistyped the inputs, so double-check the name and date of birth before you submit. Government agencies and qualified charitable organizations can request an agency code from the Criminal Justice Information Center that waives the per-search fee for authorized uses.
Why Name-Based Results Can Be Wrong
iCHAT matches on name and biographical data, not fingerprints. Fingerprint identification is the only way to definitively tie a person to a criminal record. Name-based searches can produce false positives when two people share a name and similar details, or when the database uses phonetic matching on similar-sounding names.
Common sources of error include nicknames, name changes after marriage or divorce, hyphenated last names, transliteration from non-English languages, and simple data-entry mistakes made at the time of arrest. If you are making a hiring or tenancy decision, acting on an iCHAT hit without confirming the record actually belongs to your applicant is where people run into legal trouble.
Using iCHAT Results in Hiring or Tenant Decisions
An employer who uses iCHAT in employment decisions has to work within both federal and Michigan law, and the rules are stricter than many people assume.
Fair Credit Reporting Act
When an employer uses a third-party screening company to pull a background check, the federal Fair Credit Reporting Act requires the employer to tell the applicant in a standalone written notice that a background check may be used, get the applicant’s written permission before running the check, and certify to the reporting company that the FCRA has been followed.3Federal Trade Commission. Using Consumer Reports: What Employers Need to Know
If the employer decides not to hire based on the report, the FCRA requires a two-step adverse action process. Before the final decision, the employer gives the applicant a copy of the report and a copy of “A Summary of Your Rights Under the Fair Credit Reporting Act,” so the applicant can dispute errors. After the decision is final, the employer notifies the applicant that the decision was based on the report, provides the name and contact information of the reporting company, and informs the applicant of the right to dispute the report and obtain a free copy within 60 days.3Federal Trade Commission. Using Consumer Reports: What Employers Need to Know
Whether an employer running their own iCHAT search, rather than hiring a screening company, triggers these FCRA duties is worth checking with counsel. The safest practice is to follow the notice and adverse action steps either way.
Michigan’s Elliott-Larsen Civil Rights Act
Michigan’s Elliott-Larsen Civil Rights Act prohibits employers from requesting, making, or maintaining records about misdemeanor arrests that did not result in conviction.4Michigan Legislature. MCL 37-2205a An applicant cannot be penalized for not disclosing a misdemeanor arrest that was dropped, dismissed, or ended in acquittal. Because iCHAT does show felony arrests regardless of outcome, employers need to be careful about separating arrests from convictions when they read a result. Courts have consistently held that disqualifying applicants based on arrest records alone is unlawful discrimination.
Michigan does not have a statewide “ban the box” law restricting criminal history questions on initial job applications, though some local governments have adopted their own ordinances.
Clean Slate and Why Older Records May Have Disappeared
Michigan’s Clean Slate law took effect on April 11, 2023. Under it, the Michigan State Police automatically sets aside eligible convictions in the criminal history database once the required waiting period has passed, with no application required from the person convicted.5Michigan State Police. Clean Slate
The waiting periods are:
- Felonies: 10 years after sentencing or completion of any prison term with the Michigan Department of Corrections, whichever is later.
- Misdemeanors punishable by 93 days or more: 7 years after sentencing.
- Misdemeanors punishable by less than 92 days: 7 years after sentencing, with no limit on how many can be set aside.
For a felony or serious misdemeanor to qualify, the person must have no pending criminal charges in the MSP database and no new convictions during the waiting period. No more than 2 felonies and no more than 4 misdemeanors of 93 days or more can be set aside automatically.5Michigan State Police. Clean Slate
Several categories are permanently excluded from automatic set-aside: assaultive crimes, serious misdemeanors, crimes of dishonesty, offenses punishable by 10 or more years of imprisonment, human trafficking, crimes involving minors or vulnerable adults, operating while intoxicated, and commercial motor vehicle violations. People with these convictions may still be able to petition a court for expungement through the traditional application process, depending on the offense.5Michigan State Police. Clean Slate
For an iCHAT user, the practical effect is that a search today may return fewer results than the same search a few years ago, because eligible older convictions are being cleared on a rolling basis.
Fixing Errors on Your Own Record
If an iCHAT result on you is wrong, the Michigan State Police will not change the record until the agency that originally reported the information confirms the error. You have to go back to the source.6Michigan State Police. Search, Expunge, Modify, or Update Criminal History Records
- Incorrect arrest information: contact the law enforcement agency named in the arrest segment.
- Incorrect charge information: contact the prosecuting attorney’s office named in the charge segment.
- Incorrect court information: contact the court named in the judicial segment.
Those agencies can update records electronically. If they cannot, they can contact the Michigan State Police Criminal Justice Information Center at 517-241-0606 or msp-crd-crimhelp@michigan.gov.6Michigan State Police. Search, Expunge, Modify, or Update Criminal History Records