If you have lived in the United States previously, you might be required to provide FBI Background Check certificate for employment or residence/citizenship related issues.

I had tried to get my fingerprints done by myself but they were rejected because I did not do them correctly. The reason provided by FBI was –

The quality of the characteristics is too low to be used

So instead of doing them myself again I decided to use a provider. In the United States, it is possible to go just to the Police Station and get the fingerprint cards filled but the process is a little different here in the Ottawa-Gatineau area.

You will need to go to Commissionaires – Centretown who would be able to do the fingerprints for you on the FBI Fingerprint Card. The service is a bit costly but considering I did not want my fingerprints rejected again, I decided to use them for getting my fingerprints done.

You might be told that they will scan your fingerprints using their scanner and print them on a page. That is completely fine and the documents are accepted by the FBI.

It is not required to have Ink based fingerprints on the Fingerprint Card for them to be accepted by the FBI. Depending on which service location you are headed, Commissionaires might not be able to offer you Ink based service.

The whole process for me took less than 5 minutes.