How to get a police check

The check searches for disclosable court outcomes and, in some circumstances, pending charges. Disclosable court outcomes are convictions, findings of guilt, good behaviour bonds and similar orders that the relevant police agency decides may be released for the purpose you nominated.

The result comes back in one of two forms: no disclosable court outcomes, or a certificate listing what has been released. A listing is not the same as a conviction record — bonds, dismissals and matters dealt with without conviction can appear, depending on the jurisdiction and the purpose.

Spent convictions schemes limit what can be disclosed after a period has passed without further offending. There is a Commonwealth scheme in Part VIIC of the Crimes Act 1914 and separate schemes in the states and territories, with different waiting periods, different treatment of juvenile findings, and different exclusions. Serious offences, and offences that attracted long sentences, are typically excluded from the scheme entirely.

The exclusions matter as much as the rules. Even where a conviction is spent, legislation commonly permits or requires disclosure for particular purposes — working with children or vulnerable people, appointments to certain positions, firearms and security licensing, and some regulated occupations. Someone whose old matter has never appeared on a check for employment may find it appears on a check for one of these purposes.

Police also retain a discretion to release information they consider relevant to the purpose of the check, and to withhold information they consider irrelevant. That discretion is applied by each agency under its own information release policy, which is why the same person can receive different results from checks with different stated purposes.

The check does not include intelligence holdings, investigations that did not result in charges, or matters where a person was found not guilty. Nor does it include traffic infringements dealt with as fines, although traffic offences dealt with by a court can appear.

Overseas criminal history is not included. A national police check covers Australian records only. Roles that require overseas history use separate police certificates from the relevant country, which for immigration and some employment purposes must be obtained directly from that country's authorities.

Decide who you are applying through. You can apply to the Australian Federal Police, which handles national police checks for individuals and for purposes including Commonwealth employment, licensing and visa-related requirements. Or you can apply through one of the many ACIC-accredited bodies — private organisations authorised to submit checks — which is how most employment checks are processed.

Accredited bodies vary in price and turnaround and all submit to the same national system, so the underlying result is the same wherever you apply. What differs is cost, how quickly they process, and how the certificate is delivered. ACIC publishes the list of accredited bodies, and using one that is not on the list is a risk in itself.

Nominate the purpose accurately. The purpose determines what is released, and it has to match the role. A check obtained for general employment may not satisfy an organisation that is legally required to obtain a check for work with vulnerable people, and an employer that accepts the wrong type is not meeting its obligation.

Assemble identity documents to the 100-point standard: a commencement of identity document such as a full birth certificate or citizenship certificate, a primary use document such as a passport or driver licence, and secondary documents such as a Medicare card or a bank statement. At least one document must show your photograph and one must show your current residential address.

List every name you have used. Checks are run against names and dates of birth, so previous surnames, maiden names, legally changed names and commonly used variants of your name all need to be declared. Omitting one is the most common cause of a check being returned as unable to be completed, and in some contexts it is treated as a false declaration.

Give every residential address for the required period, usually the past five years. Addresses are used to route the request to the right police agencies and to help resolve identity matches.

Submit and wait. A large majority of checks are returned within a few business days, but any result requiring manual assessment by one or more police agencies takes longer, sometimes substantially. There is no way to expedite a check that has gone to manual review, and applying again does not speed it up — it creates a second queue entry.

Volunteer checks are often available at reduced or no cost when the request comes through the organisation you are volunteering with, and some jurisdictions provide them free. Ask the organisation to initiate the check rather than paying for one yourself.

Every state and territory operates its own Working with Children Check, under its own name — the Working with Children Check in New South Wales and Victoria, the Blue Card in Queensland, and equivalents elsewhere. They are legal requirements for child-related work, and a national police check does not substitute for one.

The differences are substantive. These checks consider a broader range of information than a police check, including some non-conviction material, findings by professional and disciplinary bodies, and in some jurisdictions reportable conduct findings by employers. They apply a risk assessment rather than simply disclosing records.

They are also continuously monitored. Once cleared, your status is checked against police and other data on an ongoing basis, and a clearance can be suspended or revoked if new information arises. A national police check has no such monitoring — it is finished the moment it is issued.

Clearances are generally not portable between states. Working in child-related roles in more than one jurisdiction usually requires a check in each, although some mutual recognition arrangements exist for short periods of interstate work. Check before travelling for work rather than after.

The NDIS Worker Screening Check is another distinct clearance, administered by state and territory worker screening units and recognised nationally for NDIS purposes, with the NDIS Quality and Safeguards Commission maintaining the database. Registered NDIS providers must ensure workers in risk-assessed roles hold one, and it is not satisfied by a police check either.

Aged care, teacher registration, firearms licensing, security licensing, taxi and rideshare accreditation, and some financial services roles all have their own checking requirements layered on top of, or instead of, a general police check. If you work across sectors you may legitimately need several, and they expire and renew on different cycles.

The practical implication is to ask the organisation exactly which check they require, by its formal name, before paying for anything. Applicants regularly buy a general police check, discover the role required a Working with Children Check, and pay twice.

Check the certificate before it reaches anyone else. Where you apply for a check on yourself, you generally see the result first. Where an employer initiates it through an accredited body, you should still be given the opportunity to see and comment on any disclosed information before a decision is made — that is a standard requirement of the information release process, and you can ask for it.

Errors happen, and most are identity errors. Common names, similar dates of birth and incomplete address histories can cause a record belonging to someone else to be linked to you. If a disclosed matter is not yours, say so immediately and in writing.

There is a formal dispute process. Where you believe the information released is inaccurate, incomplete or should not have been disclosed, you can lodge a dispute, and the matter is referred to the police agency that released the information for reassessment. The AFP and each state agency publish their own dispute contacts.

Disputes about whether a conviction should have been treated as spent are decided under the relevant spent convictions legislation, which differs between the Commonwealth and each state. Because a matter can be spent in one jurisdiction's scheme and not another's, the answer depends on where the conviction was recorded as well as where you are applying.

Privacy law applies to how organisations handle the result. Employers and accredited bodies must collect only what they need, use it for the purpose it was obtained, store it securely and not disclose it beyond that purpose. If a check result has been misused, disclosed to people with no role in the decision, or retained indefinitely without justification, that is a privacy complaint and the Office of the Australian Information Commissioner handles them.

A disclosed record does not automatically disqualify you. Most organisations assess relevance: what the offence was, how long ago, the person's age at the time, the pattern since, and how it relates to the inherent requirements of the role. Some jurisdictions have anti-discrimination protections covering irrelevant criminal record, and a blanket refusal to consider anyone with any record can be challenged in some circumstances.

Prepare for the conversation rather than hoping it will not happen. Where you know something will be disclosed, telling the employer before the certificate arrives is almost always better than letting them discover it. What damages applications is the surprise and the appearance of concealment, more often than the underlying matter.

There is no single national fee. The AFP sets its own price and each accredited body sets its own, so the same underlying check costs different amounts depending on where you apply. Volunteer rates are lower or nil in many cases, and organisations frequently pay for checks they require.

Turnaround is fast in most cases and unpredictable in the rest. Where all nine agencies return a clear automated result the certificate is usually issued within days. Where any agency needs to assess a record manually, or where identity cannot be resolved automatically, it can take weeks. Build that into recruitment timelines rather than assuming the quick case.

You cannot reuse a check for a different purpose. Because release depends on the purpose nominated, a certificate obtained for one role is not automatically appropriate for another, and organisations subject to statutory requirements will generally insist on their own check through their own accredited body.

Do not hand your original identity documents to anyone who is not verifying them under an approved process, and be careful with online providers. Police checks require exactly the document set that identity criminals want, and unaccredited websites offering cheap checks are a known collection vector. Confirm the provider appears on the ACIC accredited body list.

Employers should keep results only as long as they are needed and store them securely, with access limited to the people making the decision. Retaining a scanned certificate in a shared drive indefinitely is a common and avoidable privacy exposure.

If you need an overseas police certificate as well — for a visa, or a role requiring international history — start early. Some countries take months, several require fingerprints taken in person, and Australian police can arrange fingerprinting for that purpose. This is routinely the longest item on an onboarding checklist.

Finally, keep your own copy. Certificates are not stored in a national register you can log into later, and if you lose the document you generally have to pay for a new check rather than obtaining a reprint.