National Police Checking Service Updates

Background

The Australian Criminal Intelligence Commission operates the National Police Checking Service.

This service is made available to the public through ACIC’s partnership with accredited bodies –  organisations that are authorised to provide the Service to members of the public and other organisations.

Bright Technologies Pty Ltd (a wholly owned subsidiary of Kinatico Ltd) is registered as an accredited body with the ACIC and is the owner of the Cited online screening and compliance management service you use to order background checks.

Through 2024, the ACIC has been working with Accredited Bodies to introduce a range of changes to the NPCS.

This information is describes the most important changes and how they’ll be introduced to the Cited platform for you and your Applicants.

From 1st January 2025, the check previously known as a National Police Check will be named, Nationally Coordinated Criminal History Check or NCCHC.

Volunteer National Police Checks will be named Volunteer Nationally Coordinated Criminal History Check or VNCCHC.

This is a change in name only. As before, these checks will return disclosable outcomes for an individual from all police jurisdictions in Australia.

The results of Nationally Coordinated Criminal History Checks (NCCHC) and Volunteer Nationally Coordinated Criminal History Checks (VNCCHC) will be available for download from the Cited platform for three months from the date of issue.

This is a change from the previous availability of 12 months from the date of issue.

Why has result availability changed?

The ACIC have made this change to more clearly reflect the fact that NCCHC and VNCCHC results are accurate only as at the date of issue. By reducing the time that results are available for download, there is less likelihood that an outdated result document might be viewed and relied on as part of a hiring decision.

Both Individuals and the organisation to which their results have been shared may download a copy of a PDF result certificate. If your organisation will download and retain a copy of a result certificate in either digital or printed form, you should understand your obligations to:

• Protect the rights of the individual under the Privacy Act, and
• Satisfy your obligations in relation to ACIC’s Terms of Use for approved Customers.

When are results deleted by Cited?

Cited is obliged by ACIC to retain NCCHC and VNCCHC results for 12 months from the issue date. The purpose of the internal retention period is to ensure that results are available for Cited or ACIC audit purposes.

While a record of the check will persist, Cited will be unable to extract or re-share results with Individuals or organisations after the three-month availability timeframe, whether they have been deleted or not.

The ACIC has enhanced the requirements for collecting consent from an Applicant before processing a Nationally Coordinated Criminal History Check.

Cited ensures that consent is obtained directly from the Applicant prior to the commencement of an NCCHC, including collection of the Applicant’s signature.

Actions required

No action is required from your organisation. All updated Applicant consent requirements will be collected automatically by the Cited online application process.

As an ACIC-approved Customer, your organisation is authorised to request a Nationally Coordinated Criminal History Check for an Applicant who is or may become a direct employee.

The ACIC changes mandate that the Applicant must have an opportunity to review a result that includes disclosable outcomes before it is shared with you.

This is a change from the previous process where both clear results and those with disclosable court outcomes were shared simultaneously with Individuals and Organisations once available.

Why has an applicant review period been implemented?

This change aims to increase the accuracy of NCCHC and VNCCHC results and protect the privacy of applicants, by providing them with an opportunity to review and dispute any check results that they believe have been incorrectly released or may not relate to them, prior to these being shared and relied on as part of a decision-making process.

How Cited manages review requirements

The Cited platform will invite the Applicant to review NCCHC results that include disclosable outcomes and give the Applicant 48 hours to dispute the result.

There are three ways in which the Applicant may respond to the invitation to review their disclosable result:

1. Approve for sharing. If the Applicant accepts that the result is accurate, they can give their approval for the result to be shared with you immediately.
2. Dispute the result. The Applicant may initiate Cited’s dispute process to challenge the result. Our team has a process to facilitate this with ACIC.
3. Take no action. When the 48 hour review period expires Cited will automatically share the result with you.

How Cited manages disputes

Cited has an established process for managing disputes, lodging the dispute with the ACIC, and communicating with our clients and their Applicants until the dispute is resolved. While disputes occur infrequently, Cited works closely with all parties in each instance to ensure that NCCHC results are accurate and returned as promptly as possible.

Once the dispute is resolved, Cited will then share the result certificate with you.

What is the meaning of a disputed result?

A small number of results are disputed by individuals who disagree with the disclosable outcomes returned on their certificate. The fact that a dispute is raised should not be interpreted to mean anything at all about the individual’s criminal record or history and decisions should only be made once the dispute is resolved.

Performance and SLAs

Please note that for the purposes of performance or contractual SLAs, Cited will deem that a check result has been delivered at the time we make it available to the Applicant for sharing with you.