Personnel Action Pty Limited (trading as ProbityPeople) is accredited by the Australian Criminal Intelligence Commission (ACIC) to provide Nationally Coordinated Criminal History Checks (NCCHCs) through the National Police Checking Service (NPCS).
The ACIC implemented significant changes to how NCCHC results may be accessed and shared, effective from 1 January 2025. This page explains how those changes affect recruitment, search, staffing and labour hire organisations.
Important: recruitment and staffing agencies are subject to strict result-sharing rules
Under the ACIC Access Agreement, ProbityPeople cannot share the outcome, status or any details of a candidate’s NCCHC result with a recruitment, search, staffing or labour hire organisation — unless that organisation is an ACIC-approved Customer conducting checks solely for its own direct employees.
This applies regardless of whether the applicant has consented to sharing, and regardless of whether the agency is the technical employer. Even confirming that a check has been completed with a specific outcome (DCO or NDCO) to a non-approved organisation constitutes on-disclosure under ACIC rules.
What happens when a candidate’s NCCHC is completed
When a check ordered through your ProbityPeople account is finalised, the following occurs:
- You will receive an email notification that the check has been completed.
- The candidate receives their full NCCHC result via their secure ProbityPeople portal. The result belongs to the candidate.
- The candidate may choose to download their certificate and share it directly with you or with your client — this is their decision alone.
- You will not receive the NCCHC result, certificate or any outcome information through your portal. ProbityPeople cannot provide this to you as a result of ACIC restrictions.
- You can verify the authenticity of a certificate the candidate shares with you using ProbityPeople’s verification portal: portal.probitypeople.com.au/verify
What about ‘Approved Customer’ status?
Approved Customer status allows eligible organisations to receive NCCHC results directly through their ProbityPeople portal. However, ACIC eligibility requirements for Approved Customer status are strict.
Recruitment agencies, search firms, staffing agencies and labour hire companies are not eligible for Approved Customer status where they are conducting checks on candidates they intend to place with or supply to third-party employers or host clients.
This is because ACIC’s Approved Customer framework requires that checks are conducted solely for an organisation’s own personnel — not for the purpose of supplying or placing candidates with other organisations.
Approved Customer status may be available to your organisation in limited circumstances — for example, if you are conducting checks on candidates you are engaging directly as your own employees (not for placement with a third party). If you believe your use case may qualify, please contact us to discuss your specific circumstances before making an application.
The correct pathway for your candidates
The compliant approach for most recruitment, search, staffing and labour hire scenarios is the applicant-direct pathway:
How it works
- You invite the candidate to complete their NCCHC through ProbityPeople as usual.
- When the result is finalised, the candidate receives it directly in their secure portal.
- The candidate downloads their NCCHC certificate and shares it with you and/or your end client directly — by email, in person, or through any secure method they choose.
- You or your client can verify the authenticity of the certificate at portal.probitypeople.com.au/verify
This pathway is compliant, involves no additional obligations for your organisation, and is available immediately.
NCCHC result availability — 3-month access period
- NCCHC results are available to the candidate for 3 months from the date of issue. After this period, the result is no longer accessible and a new check will be required if needed.
- As an accredited body, ProbityPeople retains records for 12 months for ACIC audit compliance purposes only — this does not extend the period during which results can be accessed or used.
- Candidates and clients should not rely on or use an NCCHC result that is more than 3 months old.
Disclosable outcome review period
Where a candidate’s NCCHC returns a Disclosable Court Outcome (DCO), the candidate is given a reasonable period to review and, if they believe it is incorrect, dispute the result before it is finalised. ProbityPeople allows 48 hours for this review. Candidates may choose to release their result immediately if they wish. ProbityPeople manages this process directly with the candidate — no action is required from your organisation.
Other changes — applicant identity verification
- Applicants are required to provide a minimum of three identity documents plus a self-captured linkage photo (previously four documents).
- All identity documents must be current and valid at the time of submission.
Questions?
If you have questions about how these changes affect your organisation’s use of ProbityPeople’s services, please contact our team:
- Phone: 1300 333 246 (Monday to Friday, 9:00am to 5:00pm)
- Email: enquiries@probitypeople.com.au
- Live Chat: available on our website during business hours
