How Do I Interpret My National Police Certificate (AFP Check) Results?

A National Police Certificate is undertaken via the Australian Federal Police (AFP Check) will show one of two different types of results:

• No Disclosable Court Outcomes (NDCO)
• Disclosable Court Outcomes (DCO).

No Disclosable Court Outcomes (NDCO)

This means that either there is:

• no police information identified; or
• no police information that can be released based on the check purpose, and the application of relevant spent convictions legislations and/or information release policies.

Disclosable Court Outcomes (DCO)

This means there is police information that can be released based on the details included with the application, including the check purpose.

A check result with a DCO may list the following police information:

• court convictions, including penalties and sentences
• findings of guilt with no conviction
• court appearances
• good behaviour bonds or other court orders
• matters awaiting court hearing
• warrants and/or warnings
• traffic offences

Unable to Process (UTP)

In some circumstances, the Nationally Coordinated Criminal History Check submitted is 'unable to be processed'. Some reasons include:

• insufficient or incorrect check data submitted;
• legislation prevents a juvenile check from being processed;
• where informed consent has not been properly collected;
• police data integrity issue; and/or
• when an Request For Information (RFI) has not been finalised within the required timeframe.

AFP National Police Certificate (AFP Certificate)

As a standard process, we do not provide AFP Certificates for every case we process, except where there is a Disclosable Court Outcome (DCO) or it is specifically requested by the client in advance. 

• AFP Certificates are made available to our clients approximately 5-10 working days following the interim result appearing in the background check report.
• AFP Certificates are made available via a secure Send Safely link, separate to the rest of the background checking report. 
• Notifications of updates on Send Safely accounts can be activated via the Send Safely account settings by the client.
• AFP Certificates take additional time as the physical certificate is sent to us via Australia Post from the AFP.

If you would like further information, please contact our team at aus-support@certn.co.