To better understand the concerns, legal risks and market forces that may contribute to a lack of information sharing about employees in financial services, examples of other industries facing similar issues were examined.

The best documented example concerned airline pilots. In the late 1980s and early 1990s, while the banking sector in the US was undergoing the savings and loan crisis, the airline industry confronted another: fatal accidents. Post-accident reviews by the National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB) concluded that pilot error contributed to or caused at least seven commercial airline crashes in a period of as many years. In each of those crashes, the pilots had been hired without effective background checks. It was only belatedly that the NTSB uncovered safety violations and training deficiencies involving the seven pilots in their previous airline employment.

Congress responded by passing the Pilot Records Improvement Act of 1996 (PRIA). According to the legislative history of that statute, although the overall quality of airline pilots was high, there were gaps in information sharing - especially on pilots hired for commuter routes. "[T]wenty per cent of these carriers may not conduct background checks on professional references [US Congress, Airline Pilot Hiring and Safety Act of 1996, July 1996, H.R. Rep. no 104-684, p 6.]." Legal risks were to blame for the gaps in employee information: