The person
Government photo-ID is scanned and read, then matched to a live facial scan with tamper and replay detection. The applicant proves they are the person on the ID — on their own phone, in about three minutes.
How ID verification worksTenant screening · Canada & US
Know exactly who you're handing the keys to.
Tenant screening that verifies the person, not just the credit file.
RentKey is tenant screening built to verify the person, not just the credit file. One report covers bureau credit, biometric photo-ID with liveness, global sanctions and watchlists, law-enforcement notices and eviction records — in minutes, for landlords on both sides of the border.
Watch the six-minute film- No SIN or SSN required to start
- Consent captured in the flow
- Landlord or applicant pays
Screening report
Ref RK-26-08417
IdentityPassport OCR · face match · liveness confirmed
Verified
Credit0 collections · 21% utilization · 6-yr history
Good
Sanctions & watchlistsOSFI · OFAC SDN · UN · PEP
Cleared
Law enforcementInterpol Red Notices · FBI wanted
No match
Court & evictionLTB · CanLII · US county & national eviction
No records
Summary
Low risk — proceed
Credit score
742
Illustrative sample. Applicant details are fictional.
Six minutes
Watch one unit go from listing to decision.
The whole product in one run. Unit 4B is listed on Monday, three applications arrive by Wednesday, and the one that looks perfect is not. You see the applicant prove who they are on their own phone, every check run against that verified identity, and one report land with every source underneath. No slides, and no step skipped.
- Why a clean credit file is not proof of a person, and what the usual checks let through
- The identity check, taken live: the licence read and checked for tampering, a real face matched to it
- Crown Intelligence opening the records most services never check, and the ledger that holds it all afterwards
0:00 / 6:01
Please press play to watch the video and see how the product works.Thank you.
6checks
Identity, credit, sanctions, law enforcement, courts, criminal — one report
2countries
One product, one report format, for Canada and the United States
~3min
For the applicant to verify their ID on their own phone
24hours
Biometric scans are deleted within a day of the match
The gap
A credit score tells you if they can pay. It doesn't tell you who they are.
Most tenant background checks pull one bureau file and a domestic criminal database, then call it done. Borrowed documents, synthetic identities and applicants with no domestic footprint pass straight through. RentKey checks the person, the money and the record — together.
The money
A tenant credit check pulls the full bureau credit report and score — tradelines, collections, utilization and payment history — through licensed screening partners in Canada and the US, then ties it to the identity that was just verified.
What the credit section showsThe record
Global sanctions and watchlists (OSFI, OFAC, UN, PEP), Interpol and FBI notices, and court, tribunal and eviction records. Add an official RCMP CPIC criminal check when the tenancy calls for it.
Every source we searchWhat's in the report
Six checks. One page you can act on.
Identity and credit come with every package; add sanctions, law-enforcement and court checks as the tenancy calls for it. Each section names its sources, shows what was matched and what wasn't, and ends with a plain-language summary. A finding is never a bare “fail” — you see the designating authority, the matched name and aliases, and a match-confidence score.
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01
Identity verification for rental applicants
Document OCR on passports, driver's licences and permanent-resident or Green cards, cross-matched against a live facial scan, with liveness tracked on 478 facial landmarks. Liveness and tamper detection stop photos, screens and deepfakes. Biometric data is used for the match and deleted within a day.
PassportDriver's licencePR / Green cardActive livenessAll packages -
02
Credit report & score
A tenant credit check pulling a bureau credit file from a licensed Canadian or US screening partner: score, open and closed tradelines, collections, utilization and payment history. Requested with the applicant's consent; a SIN or SSN is optional and only speeds up bureau matching.
ScoreTradelinesCollectionsUtilizationAll packages -
03
Sanctions, watchlists & PEP
Run through Crown Intelligence, our in-house screening engine: OSFI's consolidated list, the OFAC SDN list, UN Security Council designations and politically-exposed-person registers. Name, alias and date-of-birth matching with a confidence score on every hit.
OSFIOFAC SDNUN ConsolidatedPEPVerify + Sanctions and up -
04
Law-enforcement notices
Interpol Red Notices and FBI wanted lists, matched against the verified identity rather than a typed name. Applicants who don't appear in domestic databases don't slip through.
Interpol Red NoticesFBI wantedVerify Pro and up -
05
Court, tribunal & eviction record checks
Landlord-tenant tribunal decisions, published court records and eviction filings — LTB and provincial tribunals, CanLII and SOQUIJ in Canada; county and national eviction records in the US. Coverage varies by province and state and is stated on the report.
LTB / RTB decisionsCanLIISOQUIJUS eviction recordsVerify Pro and up -
06
Enhanced criminal record check
An official search of the RCMP's national repository (CPIC) through an accredited partner, reported in the RCMP's own wording — or a US national criminal and sex-offender registry search. If a possible match is found, fingerprint-certified disclosure is available.
RCMP CPICUS national criminalSex-offender registryComplete packageComplete package
How it works
From invite to decision in one sitting.
No forms to chase, no documents emailed back and forth. You send a link; the applicant does the rest on their phone.
-
Invite the applicant
Send a screening link by email or text. Choose whether you pay or the applicant does, and which package to run.
30 seconds -
They verify on their phone
Photo-ID scan and a short liveness check. Consent and disclosures are captured in the flow. No app to download, no SIN or SSN required.
About 3 minutes -
Checks run in parallel
Credit, sanctions, law-enforcement and court records are pulled and matched against the identity that was just verified — not against a name someone typed.
Minutes, not days -
You get one report
A single branded PDF with a plain-language summary, every source named, and the notices you need to give the applicant if you decline.
Same session
Side by side
What a typical landlord tenant screening service checks — and what it leaves out.
| Check | Typical service | RentKey |
|---|---|---|
| Bureau credit report & score | Yes | Yes |
| Criminal record searchDomestic database vs. official RCMP CPIC | Partial | Yes |
| Eviction & tribunal records | Partial | Yes |
| Photo-ID verification with facial liveness | No | Yes |
| Global sanctions & watchlists (OSFI, OFAC, UN) | No | Yes |
| Politically-exposed-person screening | No | Yes |
| Interpol & FBI notices | No | Yes |
| One product for Canada and the US | No | Yes |
| SIN / SSN never required to start | Varies | Yes |
“Typical service” reflects the published feature sets of leading Canadian and US tenant-screening products as of September 2026. Partial means offered in some markets or tiers only.
Activity ledger
Every open, every download, every invite — on the record.
Your account keeps an append-only ledger of everything that happens in it: who sent which invite, who opened or downloaded which report, and when. It can't be edited — not by you, not by us — and it's searchable like a database.
- Append-only: no entry can be changed or deleted
- Search by person, report, action or date; export as CSV
- Origin and device detail held separately, released on request
- Entries outlive the reports they describe
| When | Action | Who | Applied to |
|---|---|---|---|
| 12 Sep · 14:31 | REPORT_DOWNLOADED | JTJ. Tremblay | Report RK-26-08417Priya N. · Unit 2B |
| 12 Sep · 14:20 | REPORT_VIEWED | SPS. Patel | Report RK-26-08417Priya N. · Unit 2B |
| 12 Sep · 14:13 | REPORT_READY | RKSystem | Report RK-26-08417Verify Pro · 11 min |
| 12 Sep · 14:02 | APPLICANT_CONSENTED | PNApplicant | Invite · Unit 2BConsent v3 · disclosures shown |
| 11 Sep · 17:48 | INVITE_SENT | SPS. Patel | Invite · Unit 2BPayer: landlord |
Append-only (WORM). Illustrative excerpt — names are fictional.chain 9f3a…c41e
Built for
One unit or ten thousand.
Independent landlords
Pay per report, no subscription. Send the link, get the answer, keep the good tenant.
- Let the applicant pay if you prefer
- Plain-language summary and next steps
- Adverse-action notices included
Property managers & brokerages
A consistent standard across every building, every agent and every province or state you operate in.
- Team accounts with shared reports
- Seven-year retention, verified deletion
- Volume pricing on request
Platforms & marketplaces
Embed RentKey screening in your listing site, PM software or brokerage portal — under your brand or ours.
- REST API and webhooks
- White-label report template
- Revenue share for partners
Before you switch
The questions landlords ask us first.
“Won't applicants abandon a screening that asks for a selfie?”
Good applicants finish it in about three minutes on their phone, with no app to install and no SIN to type. The ones who won't show their face to the person they're asking for keys are the ones you wanted to know about.
“Is it legal to check a tenant against sanctions lists?”
Yes — these are public lists that banks, brokerages and employers screen against every day. RentKey shows a match only with the designating authority, the matched name and a confidence score, so you act on a fact, not a hunch.
“I'm not technical, and I only have one unit.”
You send a link. The applicant does the rest. The report arrives as one PDF with a plain-language summary and the notice you'd need if you decline. There's nothing to configure and nothing to subscribe to.
“What if my province or state doesn't allow application fees?”
Choose “landlord pays” on the invite. Where applicant-pays is restricted, the invite flags it before you send and defaults to you paying.
“How is this different from the report I already get?”
Yours checks a typed name against one bureau file and maybe a domestic database. RentKey verifies the person first, then runs credit, sanctions, law-enforcement and court checks against that verified identity — and logs who opened the result. See the comparison.
Privacy & compliance
Handled the way a bank would handle it.
Screening only works if applicants trust it and regulators accept it. RentKey is designed around PIPEDA, provincial privacy law and the US Fair Credit Reporting Act — and around the human-rights codes that govern who you may and may not turn away.
Read the privacy policyConsent first
The applicant sees who is asking, what will be checked and why, and consents before anything is pulled. Disclosures are logged with the report.
Biometrics deleted within a day
Facial scans are used for the match and deleted within a day. Only the result and a signed verification hash are kept.
No SIN or SSN required
Name and date of birth are enough to start. Government ID numbers are optional and only speed up bureau matching.
Facts, not profiles
Reports show verifiable records, not social-media scoring or protected characteristics. What you see is what you can lawfully act on.
Encrypted end to end
Data is encrypted in transit and at rest. Reports are shared by expiring link, never as an email attachment.
Retention you control
Set how long reports are kept. When the window closes, they are deleted — from our systems as well as yours.
Pricing
Pay per report, or save with a plan.
Every RentKey report checks the applicant is who they say they are, with biometric ID and global sanctions screening built in — the checks other services charge extra for, or leave out. Three packages, from identity and credit to the full picture with employment verification, plans for landlords who fill units often, and volume pricing for property managers and platforms. One bad tenancy costs more than years of reports — do the math with your own numbers.
No plan
needed — buy a report when you have an applicant
No fees
until you run a report, or pick a plan
You choose
who pays — you or the applicant
Questions
Straight answers.
Is RentKey available now?
We are onboarding early-access landlords, property managers and platform partners to our landlord tenant screening service in Canada and the United States. Request access and we'll set you up as capacity opens in your province or state.
Does the applicant have to give a SIN or SSN?
No. Full name and date of birth are enough to run every check, including the tenant credit check. A SIN or SSN is an optional field that can speed up credit-bureau matching, and it is labelled that way in the flow. Under Canadian privacy law a landlord cannot require one.
How long does a report take?
ID verification for rental applicants takes about three minutes on their phone. Credit, sanctions, law-enforcement and court checks then run in parallel, and most reports complete within minutes of the applicant finishing. The optional enhanced criminal check follows RCMP or partner processing times and may take longer if fingerprint confirmation is needed.
Who pays for the report?
Your choice, per invite. Pay yourself and it's billed to your card, or have the applicant pay when they start the screening. Note that some provinces and states restrict application fees — the invite tells you when that applies.
What happens if a record is found?
You see an itemized disclosure, never a bare “fail”: for an eviction record check or any other match, RentKey shows the designating authority or court, the matched name and aliases, the nature of the record, the date, and a match-confidence score. False positives on common names are flagged as such. If you decline an applicant, the report includes the notice you must give them.
Is this legal in my province or state?
RentKey reports are consent-based and designed around PIPEDA, provincial privacy legislation and the US Fair Credit Reporting Act. You remain responsible for using the report fairly under your local tenancy and human-rights law — the report shows facts you can lawfully consider and leaves out what you can't.
Can I integrate RentKey into my own platform?
Yes. Platforms, brokerages and property-management software can embed screening through our REST API and webhooks, with a white-label report template and revenue share. See the partner overview.
Watch a verification run
Six stages. Eleven minutes in real life. Twenty seconds here.
This is the sequence every applicant goes through — and the order matters. The person is verified first; every other check is then run against that verified identity, not against a name someone typed.
RentKey verificationRUNNING
Stage 1 of 6
Read, not photographedFront and back are read edge to edge. The machine-readable zone is checked against the printed fields and the document is scored for tampering.
Early access
Stop guessing at the door. Screen the whole picture.
Tell us where you operate and how many units you manage. We'll reply within one business day.
