Harvard’s largest security contractor, Allied Security (formerly Security Services Inc.), is another contractor that already uses the CORI check to investigate workers, according to Allied Security spokesperson Larry Rubin.

“All employees of Allied Security working at Harvard University have been given a thorough background check prior to their being hired,” Rubin wrote in an e-mail. “All employees who formerly worked for SSI and, as a result of the acquisition are now Allied Security employees, have [also] had background checks completed by Allied Security.”

Unlike these employees, Ramos, the Sodexho employee who worked at Harvard University Health Services (UHS), did not go through a background check before he was hired.

“[Ramos] went through what we call a verification process,” said Stacy Bowman-Hade, a spokesperson for Sodexho. “We verify his ID and Social Security number. That’s all that was required by our client at that time.

“Our policy is to follow the lead of our client,” she added.

As a result of Ramos’s arrest, the University required that Sodhexo do background checks on its UHS workers, Touborg said.

Bowman-Hade said she saw “no problem” in beginning to perform background checks on all Sodexho workers at Harvard, if the University made the request.

“I know we have a lot of employees there that are in good standing,” she said.

—Staff writer May Habib can be reached at habib@fas.harvard.edu.