Fama Technologies Granted U.S. Patent on Foundational AI-Powered Social Media Screening Technology

May 29, 2026 – Fama Technologies, providers of AI-powered online screening, has announced that the United States Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO) has allowed all claims in its patent application covering the foundational technology behind social media background screening. The patent, titled “System for Searching and Correlating Online Activity with Individual Classification Factors,” has a priority date of November 30, 2015, establishing Fama as the original inventor of the technology that has since become a critical component of modern hiring and risk management.

“We’ve been building this technology since 2015, long before social media screening was recognized as an essential part of the hiring process,” said Ben Mones, founder and CEO of Fama Technologies. “This patent validates what our customers and partners already know: Fama didn’t just enter the online screening market, we created it. The core technology that powers the category was invented here.”

The allowed patent encompasses 22 claims spanning key components of Fama’s technology pipeline: extracting personally identifiable information from source documents, retrieving online activity from social media platforms and websites, transforming unstructured image data into structured datasets using object recognition, classifying content using machine learning algorithms trained on inter-rater agreements, and presenting results through an interactive reporting interface.

A Decade of Innovation

Fama’s patent journey began with a provisional application filed on November 30, 2015, when non-tech players in the market proliferated. Ever since, Fama has worked with a series of lawyers, IP experts, and USPTO examiners to navigate the patent approval process, eventually securing the IP in March 2026.

Over that period Fama’s feature set has also evolved to include video analysis, multilingual screening, and monitoring. It has also developed a series of unique approaches to identifying web content about profiles about a person. Based on this evolution, the company has also filed a continuation patent application to expand its intellectual property portfolio with additional claims covering the same foundational technology.

Fama strengthened its position in the market with the 2023 acquisition of Social Intelligence, one of the first market entrants and an early pioneer in the space. In 2011, Social Intelligence worked with the FTC to legalize and establish the compliance framework for social media screening. Bringing the two companies together meshed Fama’s unique technological IP with Social Intel’s gold standard in compliance. Fama has built on that foundation with a compliance-first AI-powered solution designed for enterprise use. Today, as more organizations incorporate online screening into hiring and workforce risk management, Fama’s patent further reinforces its position as the long-term technology leader in the space.

Related: Rethinking Executive Due Diligence: Beyond the Traditional Background Check

“As the online screening market matures, intellectual property becomes increasingly important,” added Mr. Mones. “For customers and partners, this patent reinforces that the technology powering Fama is proprietary, built for long term reliability and developed on a foundation of genuine innovation.”

Recent Findings

Workplace misconduct rarely starts in the workplace anymore. Increasingly, the earliest signals appear online, often long before employers are aware of any issues, according to Fama Technologies’ latest State of Misconduct at Work report. The study found that digital platforms have become the first place where behaviors are expressed, documented, and observed. The findings show that misconduct signals are rising and appearing in places many employers did not historically associate with workplace risk, creating new challenges for organizations trying to manage employee behavior and protect workplace culture.

In 2025, Fama found that 6.45 percent of screenings contained misconduct signals, a 34 percent increase year over year. In practical terms, roughly one in 15 screenings revealed adverse online behavior connected to harassment, intolerance, or other forms of misconduct. Fama explained that this sharp increase highlights how rapidly online behavior is evolving and how important it is for employers to stay ahead of emerging risks. Harassment and trolling represented the largest share of flagged behavior (37.2 percent), followed by intolerance (23.9 percent) and sexually explicit misconduct (17.8 percent). “These categories continue to dominate misconduct trends and reflect broader societal shifts in communication and online interaction,” the report said.

But the most notable shift this year is where these signals are appearing, the Fama report found. “Over the past year, misconduct flags grew most sharply on LinkedIn and Facebook, platforms commonly used for professional networking and employer engagement,” the study said. Misconduct signals on LinkedIn increased by nearly 200 percent year over year, while flags on Facebook grew by more than 100 percent during the same period. At the same time, activity declined significantly on platforms historically associated with public conflict, suggesting that behavioral risk is shifting toward more mainstream and professional online environments where individuals are more closely tied to their real identities, the Fama report noted.

To read the full Fama report, please click here!

Contributed by Scott A. Scanlon, Editor-in-Chief and Dale M. Zupsansky, Executive Editor  – Hunt Scanlon Media