Illinois Security Guard (PERC), Detective & Locksmith Licenses

The entire Illinois Detective Board roster — 700,000+ records — from the official state licensing API. That includes over 440,000 PERC (Permanent Employee Registration) cards — every registered security-guard employee in Illinois — plus firearm control cards, private detectives, security and alarm contractor agencies, locksmiths, fingerprint vendors, and canine handlers.

Who this is for

• Security companies — the new licenses filter delivers every newly issued PERC card: people who just became employable as guards and are actively job-hunting. The freshest recruiting pipeline that exists for this workforce.
• HR & compliance teams — bulk-verify PERC and firearm-card status against the official state record instead of one-at-a-time lookups.
• Insurers & underwriters — verify contractor agency licensing and disciplinary flags for security, alarm, and locksmith businesses.
• Suppliers — uniforms, equipment, training courses, insurance products. New agencies and new licensees are opening wallets.
• Background-check and investigative firms — the licensed-PI and agency roster, filterable by city.

What you get

One normalized record per license:

{
    "record_type": "individual",
    "license_category": "PERMANENT EMPLOYEE REGISTRATION",
    "license_number": "129123456",
    "name": "JANE EXAMPLE",
    "city": "CHICAGO",
    "zip_code": "60614",
    "status": "ACTIVE",
    "issue_date": "2026-06-02",
    "expiration_date": "2029-05-31",
    "is_new_license": true,
    "ever_disciplined": false,
    "lead_reasons": ["License first issued 86 days ago"]
}

Export to Excel, CSV, or JSON in one click, or pull on a schedule via API.

How to use it

1. Pick license categories (PERC cards, detectives, agencies, locksmiths...) or leave empty for all.
2. Pick a record filter: all, expiring soon, or recently issued — with the window in months.
3. Optionally narrow to one city, choose individuals / agencies, and set maximum records — you're only charged for what's delivered.

One schema across every state

Every licence roster in this catalogue delivers the same columns, in the same order, meaning the same thing — whichever state or profession the records came from. Stack this dataset on top of any other KempData roster and the columns line up.

That takes real work. Illinois writes a lapsed licensee as NOT RENEWED in block capitals; Delaware writes the identical situation as Delinquent. Both arrive here as status: "lapsed". Names arrive SHOUTING and glued together; they leave as full_name, first_name, middle_name, last_name in proper case. Dates are MM/DD/YYYY, with an _iso twin for spreadsheets and imports.

The state's own word is never thrown away. Every translated value ships beside a *_raw twin — status_raw, credential_raw, name_raw — holding the source's exact string, so you can always check our work or apply your own rules. status_basis tells you whether the standing is the state's published fact or computed from the expiration date.

lapsed is worth knowing about. It is the recall pool: people who held the licence, let it run out, and can renew. When you need experienced people in a hurry, that is the list to call.

Full column reference: docs/SCHEMA.md in the source repository.

Data source & fair use

All data comes from the Illinois IDFPR professional-licensing roster on the state's official open-data API — public records the state publishes for exactly this kind of use. No scraping, no bot games; paged requests with rate-limit handling. The Actor republishes only what the state itself makes public.

Support

Questions and issues answered fast — usually within hours. Want another security-related license category covered? Open an issue and name it — new license products get built in the order people ask.