A Nationally Coordinated Criminal History Check (police check) is a collation of police and conviction history information about an individual that has been determined releasable by government agencies.

70% of checks are delivered within 24 hours. All other checks can take longer than 10 business days to be returned.

Our system automatically dispatches results on the same day they are received.

The time it takes Australian police agencies to process an applicant's result is outside of our control.

Australian National Character Check cannot process a Nationally Coordinated Criminal History Check for the following purposes:

• Immigration purposes
• National Security purposes
• Working with Children Checks
• Working with Vulnerable People Registration Schemes
• NDIS Worker Screening Checks (National Disability Insurance Scheme)

Check certificates are available to download for three (3) months. After this period has elapsed, a new check must be applied for. A police check is a point-in-time check and only represents the applicant’s offence history as of the date of release. Most employers and decision makers will not accept a check that is older than three (3) months, however this will depend on their internal risk mitigation policies.

Nationally Coordinated Criminal History Checks provided by Australian National Character Check are valid in all states and territories in Australia.

Our minimum age is 10 years of age. If you are under 18, a parent or guardian will be required to provide an Informed Consent as part of the application.

It should be noted that the time it takes Australian Police Agencies to process your Nationally Coordinated Criminal History Check Result is outside of ours, or any other providers' control. Generally if a Nationally Coordinated Criminal History Check Result has taken longer than 3 business days to receive, it has been sent to Australian Police Agencies for further review or manual processing. This may occur for a number of reasons. Reasons for a delay in receiving a Result may include but is not limited to:

• Applicant has a common name, or a name that is a potential match with a person of interest on police systems across multiple police agencies
• Applicant has old police information requiring manual collection and processing of hardcopy records
• Police agency must investigate inaccurate or incomplete records
• Information needs to be transferred between state and territory police agencies before information can be vetted and/or released
• Police agencies workloads

Your application is sent to Australian Police Agencies for review or manual processing. They will determine based on their records if whether or not you have a disclosable court outcome on your record.

If you believe there may be an error on your Nationally Coordinated Criminal History Check Result, please follow the guidelines below:

1. In the event you may believe there is a misprint or wrongful information contained on your Nationally Coordinated Criminal History Check Result, please contact Australian National Character Check to have this checked and rectified.
   
   
2. For events where there is possibly incorrect information regarding disclosable court outcomes, please contact Australian National Character Check directly via email. If you believe the information is incorrect, you are entitled to lodge a dispute. You will need to quote your certificate number, first name, surname, and date of birth in your email to Australian National Character Check.
   
   
1. Email Australian National Character Check on support@ancc.com.au
2. Australian National Character Check will guide you how to proceed with our internal Dispute Form

In the event you believe that there is misinformation on your Nationally Coordinated Criminal History Check Result regarding the court outcome history, you are entitled to lodge a Dispute. Please follow the procedure below if this occurs:

1. Contact Australian National Character Check directly via email on support@ancc.com.au to check the Result matches our system as a technical error may have occurred. You will need to provide your Certificate number, first name, surname and date of birth in the email.
   
   
2. If the issue persists, you may request a Dispute Application from Australian National Character Check. You must complete this application, including providing all the details and documentation required, and return it to Australian National Character Check.
   
   
3. Australian National Character Check will forward this information to the relevant government agency, and they will review our Dispute Application.
   
   
4. After reviewing, the government agency will inform of the final decision. Australian National Character Check will contact the applicant directly of the final decision.
   
   

Please note: We cannot provide updates regarding the status of your lodged Dispute as this is no longer in our jurisdiction.

The accuracy of a Nationally Coordinated Criminal History Check is dependent on the quality and quantity of information provided by the Applicant. Australian National Character Check sets a minimum for the information required but it is the Applicant's responsibility that the information submitted is true, accurate and up to date.

In the event you require a hard copy certificate sometime after submission of your Nationally Coordinated Criminal History Check application, you will be required to directly email Australian National Character Check on support@ancc.com.au Please list your First Name, Surname and Date of Birth in the email. Please note there will be an additional postage charge for this service.

Results on Nationally Coordinated Criminal History Checks have no set expiry date. A Nationally Coordinated Criminal History Check is a point-in-time check, meaning that the results only reflect police records on the date they are released by each police agency. Decision makers (e.g. employers) are responsible for determining how long Nationally Coordinated Criminal History Checks are to be accepted as 'valid', based on their own risk management strategy and assessments.

A Nationally Coordinated Criminal History Check Certificate will contain the results of your Nationally Coordinated Criminal History Check application and disclosable court outcomes (if any).

Yes, Australian National Character Check website has a 'Track a Check' service available to all of our Customers, found on this website. Simply input your email address used during your application and the application reference number to view the status of your Check.

If you wish to verify the contents of a Nationally Coordinated Criminal History Check Result, you may do so through our website’s 'Verify a Check' feature. This will display the information we hold regarding the Result.

Australian National Character Check cannot provide Australian Federal Police (AFP) Checks. Please note that an AFP check differs from a Nationally Coordinated Criminal History Check and the two cannot be used in replacement of the other.

You may be eligible for an Urgent Check if your reason for a check falls under one of the following categories:

• Specialist skills required for an emergency/disaster situation
• Political reasons
• Medical reasons
• Child related process, including adoption and emergency placement
• National Security (Australian Government only)

Local police stations and Australian National Character Check access the same central government database to issue police check results.

There is no difference in the legitimacy of a Nationally Coordinated Criminal History Check issued by a local police station and Australian National Character Check.

An applicant may notice small differences in the formatting of the certificate, however both are equally valid.

Applicants that apply through Australian National Character Check do however experience the substantial difference in speed and efficiency when obtaining their police check online. 70 percent of police checks are returned to applicants within 24 hours. Results are emailed on the same day they are received. Approximately 30 percent of checks may be referred to one or more police agencies and can take longer than 10 business days to be returned, due to the manual nature of this process. Overall, applicants save time and cost when applying for their police check online.

A Nationally Coordinated Criminal History Check displays all court outcomes that are considered releasable by Australian police agencies.

The Australian Federal Government made major changes to ID requirements for police checks since July 2018 as part of the National Identity Security Strategy. These changes replaced the '100 points' ID system that was traditionally in place.

The introduction of The Federal Government’s National Identity Security Strategy has been the catalyst for the changes. The strategy is designed to enhance and improve the security of identity documents, authentication standards, the integrity of data holdings, and procedures for document verification. This keeps your data and identity more secure.

Since July 2018, applicants must provide four identification documents and a biometric link to obtain a police check. These include:

• 1 x Commencement ID
• 1 x Primary ID
• 2 x Secondary ID's
• A biometric link between the applicant and their ID documents. A self-photo "selfie" demonstrating liveness as instructed on our website is a biometric link.

During the police check application you will be asked to provide at least five years of residential address history. The "current address" must be an Australian address. The other previous addresses may be international addresses

As an accredited provider, we are legally required to request your identification documents to ensure we can adequately verify your identity before sending your police check results.

The Federal Government has made specific rules for accredited providers of police checks to follow before individuals in the community are given access to their official police check results.

Australian National Character Check offers an easy to follow online application form where you can provide images of your identification documents. We verify the documents digitally.

As part of the Federal Government's identity verification requirements, Australian National Character Check is required to establish a bio-metric link between the applicant and their ID documents. A self-photo "selfie" demonstrating liveness as instructed on our website is a bio-metric link.

New Zealand citizens living in Australia are issued with an automatic residency visa in Australia. New Zealand citizens may not have a VISA grant notice, but their details will be stored in the Department of Home Affairs Visa records system.

While completing your police check, please provide a clear photo of your passport in BOTH Commencement and Primary ID Categories and submit your police check.

Australian National Character Check has access to the Department of Home Affairs Visa system and will extract your Australian Visa using your passport details.

Applicants must provide all four identification documents in their current name. Alternatively applicants should produce an official Change of Name certificate or Marriage Certificate issued by the Australian Government - Registry of Births Deaths and Marriages.

The above rules are established by the Federal Government and must be followed strictly.

Slight changes such as misspellings, inconsistent hyphens, spaces or name formatting can mean that your documents are not considered consistent with the rules required to get a police check.

Applicant’s should approach their local government shopfront to get identification documents corrected should they find misspellings, inconsistent hyphens, spaces or incorrect name formatting on their identification documents.

Applicants must meet the minimum identity requirements regardless of which police check provider they use.

Applicant’s should approach their local government shopfront to get identification documents updated should they find they do not meet minimum identification document requirements.

This means that you may need to obtain new documents, or have your existing documents changed to reflect your name correctly if they currently do not.

As a Federal Government requirement, Australian National Character Check does not accept expired identification documents.

Sometimes identification documents cannot be accepted. The reason for this is because the rules given to us by the government will not allow us to accept the documents for certain compliance reasons.

Some of these reasons include:

• The document is not an accepted ID
• The document has expired
• The document does not exist in government databases.
• The document does not show your name
• The document is not written in English
• The document shows a nickname or abbreviation of your name

A pricing schedule outlining the cost of a police check can be found below:

Australian National Character Check offers payments for its services via Credit Card, Debit Card or PayPal.

Alternatively, we also allow Electronic Bank Transfer, details for this are below:

Account Name: National Character Checks Pty Ltd
BSB: 062 909
Account Number: 1024 2779
Reference: Surname and Application reference number
Reason: Reason for your bank transfer

Australian National Character Check is NOT required to provide a refund for:

• Any incorrect forms that are submitted by the applicant
• Any data entry errors made by the applicant
• Nationally Coordinated Criminal History Checks already submitted by Australian National Character Check to the the relevant Australian Government Agency for processing.
• Submissions of a Check for purposes that we are not authorised to process (e.g. Immigration Purposes).
• Change of mind after partially or fully completing the application process
• Selection of the wrong check type and/or purpose or reason for check

Nationally Coordinated Criminal History Checks in Australia may only be conducted by an Agency that is accredited by the ACIC. Not just any organisation may conduct police checks. There are extensive security and compliance requirements that must be achieved and maintained. Our accreditation with the ACIC is under our registered legal entity name Australian National Character Check Pty Ltd. Our trading name is Australian National Character Check. Our ABN is 29 621 712 598. You can find our accreditation details by looking for Australian National Character Check listed on the Official ACIC Government website available here: List of Accredited Brokers

By providing a streamlined and highly secure online procedure, 70 percent of police checks are returned to applicants within 24 hours. Approximately 30 percent of checks may be referred to one or more police agencies and can take longer than 10 business days to be returned, due to the manual nature of this process. Our technology gives applicants the flexibility to no longer have the hassle in dealing with paper forms or wait in ques to get identity documents certified. With instant SMS updates and a support team based in Canberra ACT, Australian National Character Check™️ has become the go-to service for individuals and businesses across Australia.

An applicant is required to submit the following ID documents:

• 1 x Commencement ID
• 1 x Primary ID
• 2 x Secondary IDs

Smart Identification is a new form of Identity Verification system that provides Australian National Character Check with the capability to confirm an individual's identity. Smart Identification has implemented cutting edge biometric comparison technology that provides a further level of security and additionally acts as a preventative measure against Identity theft and fraud. Smart Identification will require an Applicant to submit ID documents and a self photo (selfie) for biometric comparison purposes.

Please note: To use our Smart Identification system you must hold: a current Australian Drivers License (of any State or Territory), a current Passport (national or international), or an Immicard.

In the event where you cannot provide a current Passport (national or international), a current Australian Drivers License (of any State or Territory), or an Immicard, you will be required to provide a certified True Copy of a passport style photo. A certified true copy is a photocopy of the original document, which has been certified as a true and accurate by a person authorised to witness and certify documents. A full list of persons that can certify your document and passport style photo can be found here.

In order to submit a Certified True Copy photo, you must mail it to the following address. Please mail using the following details:
Australian National Character Check
PO Box 237, Fyshwick, ACT, 2609

No, for compliance reasons we require you to mail in the certified hard copies to the address stated above.

Our Smart Identification system takes a real time photo of our Applicants so that we can conduct biometric comparison to ensure that the Applicant is who they claim to be. This measure is implemented to reduce chances of identity fraud occurring and to protect our community and applicants.

The safety and security of our Customers data is of immense importance to Australian National Character Check, and for this reason we have implemented high caliber security measures such as 256-bit data encryption and SSL Encryption on our website.

Only Australian National Character Check’s authorised verification team or contractors are be able to view ID documents submitted by Applicants.

Rejection of an ID document may have occurred as it may not have been legible, expired, or did not meet the requirements stated on our Image Guidelines during the ID upload stage in your application.