Pollyana

Those are enhanced CRB checks, they are done under various UK laws, by the employer, and I'm not really sure how a third party from outside the UK would be able to do them. I'm interested as it was my old job, and I would love to know how the law has changed to allow foreign third parties (not even employers) access to UK police records - it certainly wasn't possible back in my day (around 15 years ago).
I'm wondering whether these actually are compete criminal history checks or something based on a company's data collection , rather than on bona fide polcie records.

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Fit2Work’s International Police History Check identifies felony and/or misdemeanour level conviction records and arrests pending adjudication in the country requested. from https://www.fit2work.com.au/Default.aspx#TypeOfChecks does not inspire me with confidence. What on earth is a felony and/or misdemeanour level conviction record for instance, when translated to various other countries?

genorm

Exactly, not by the registration board!

genorm

Delving into this deeper, it turns out that "Fit2Work" is then transformed into a company called "Mercury Recruitment, also known as "Mercury Search & Selection" or just "Mercury".

This is a worry:


"Mercury Search & Selection Pty Ltd and Mercury Recruitment Pty Ltd (collectively, “Mercury”, “we”, “us”, “our”) is committed to your privacy and complies with the State and Federal Privacy Laws including the Privacy Act 1988 (Cth) and the Australian Privacy Principles"

"Sensitive information is a special category of personal information and includes information or opinion about your:

· Racial or ethnic origin;
· Political opinion;
· Membership of a political association or religious beliefs, affiliations or philosophical beliefs;
· Membership of a professional or trade association or membership of a trade union;
· Sexual preferences or practices;
· Police record;
· Health or disability (at any time);
· Expressed wishes about the future provisions of health services

From time to time, Mercury may collect certain of your personal and sensitive information only in connection with the purpose for which it was collected as being reasonably necessary for or related to Mercury’s business."

"From time to time, with your consent, we may also collect personal information from third parties including CrimTrac, Dun & Bradstreet (Australia) Pty Ltd, Accurate Information Systems LLC, Australian Securities & Investments Commission and Australian Health Practitioner Regulation Agency.""

"To whom does Mercury disclose your personal information?

"We may disclose your personal information to:
· potential employers
· with consent, credit agencies
· with consent, criminal history information providers
· government authorities (where required by law)
· third parties involved in court action (where required by law)
· other parties that provide support services to our services
· Professional advisers
· Potential business partners or purchasers"

As Pollyana says, this goes beyond Advanced Police checks, and strangely, in the list of who Mercury may share the information, nothing describes the type of entity that AHPRA is.

I'd suggest if you are asked to complete this, you first speak with your MP - or local police!

Pollyana

Interesting. Thanks for the research.
I have real concerns about this. I can't see that this company will have access to official police records. There is no mention of applicants filling in proper police check forms, and even if the UK checks were going via CRB instead of ACPO (where the DIBP checks go) then there is still an official form to be filled in, and a set of privacy rules to be abided by, quite apart from the fact that I cannot see how a foreign company would get CRB access.
I am only conjecturing, but I suspect these are checks being run on conviction details collated by scanning court records etc - there are companies that do this, and they then produce partially correct lists of convictions/court appearances. Part of my concern is that if a record is disputed - which happens a lot with ACPO/CRB due to similar names and dates of birth - then how is this Mercury compnay going to resolve the dispute? The police use fingerprints. Mercury can't do that as they have no access to the prints on the conviction file.

And I only have UK knowledge. How will they deal with other countries,such as those where even the subject struggles to get a police check due to no longer residing there?

This is a huge can of worms and I'm horrified that they have slid it in under the radar in this way.

Wildrover

There seems to be conflicting information

Im still reading this as not affecting nurses, which forms say it does?

Only some groups of registered health practitioners will be affected
Most registered health practitioners will not be affected by this change.
The change will affect practitioners who:
apply to change their registration type in Australia and whose international criminal history status has changed
declare a change in their criminal history that occurred outside Australia, when they apply to renew their registration, or
inform the relevant National Board that they have been:
charged with an offence outside Australia that is punishable by a sentence of 12 months imprisonment or more, or
convicted of, have pleaded guilty to or are the subject of a finding of guilt by a court for an offence, outside Australia, that is punishable by imprisonment.

Pollyana

Nurses are considered to be 'registered health practitioners' by AHPRA.

Therefore it affects those already registered if things change for them - as above in your quote, and also it affects those now registering. Unless AHPRA have changed their definition of a 'health practitioner', and I guess anything is possible..... If things don't change and a person stays registered there'sno problem.

See genrom's comment at Post 13 above, he's checked the forms and agrees, it seems to be all health practitioners. as he is in the business of placing migrant helath practitioners into roles across Australia its in his interests to investigate whats going on


Edited to add
http://www.nursingmidwiferyboard.gov...hZpamU2Q%3d%3d

is the main applciation form for nurses and midwives who qualified outside Australia and are now applying for registration here. And it refers to the need to now get an international criminal history check from Fit2work.

genorm

It's for ALL Practitioners applying fter February 4th 2015.

You need to investigate EVERYTHING AHPRA does, because as we found with their changes regarding UK Diploma qualified Registered Nurses, they can be extremely insidious in their processes.

Follow the links on the AHPRA web site and when you get to overseas trained nurses, hit the "Common Forms" link.

genorm

The old CRB checks are now under the banner of DBS - Disclosure & Barring Service. There has been little change, but candidates can pay £13 a year to have their information passed to as many "Employers" as they wish.

However, there is nothing in the DBS guidelines that suggests private 3rd parties can arrange for checks to be made. It was interesting that there was a section in today's Live parliament discussing issues of personal security and information sharing. At no stage did the discussion mention overseas 3rd parties. I'd think they would get short shrift.

My only assumption is that this "Fit2Work" mob are going to search public records for "evidence" that would lead to "unregisterability". If they source such information from countires in the EU, they will fall foul of EU privacy laws which are much harder than those in Australia.

I need to gather more information from the UK government before I am willing to approach AHPRA - and question the legality of using an Australian 4th party to undertake such searched and disguise them as Police Checks (because "fit2work" is only a front for Mercury Recruitment).

My advice to anybody who is asked to submit to one of these would be four fold:

1. Ask how the search is different to the Police checks already undertaken;
2. Ask AHPRA to certify in writing that it is legal for 4th parties to undertake these searches;
3. Ask AHPRA if the searches undertaken by Mercury Recruitment adhere to EU law;
4. Ask AHPRA to certify ALL information to be researched by Mercury on their behalf;
5. Ask AHPRA for a full disclosure of information obtained and where it is sourced from.

If you are using a Migration Agent, I would suggest advising them of the new searches also.

Iscashe

Hello, new to this website but registered in order to discuss this topic.
Am a nurse needing to register with AHPRA so tried to use the fit2work system today. It requires UK citizens to download and print a consent form for police checks. It requested all previous addresses and names.
The website itself is terrible - there's no FAQ section and no additional help with the forms. It required you to scan and upload certain docs (passport, the signed consent forms) but did not say what format to use. The consent form is 4 pages long but you can only upload 1 document, so no explanation of how you upload 5 separate scanned sheets of A4 - I ended up merging them into 1 pdf, then 1 word doc - didn't matter what I tried though, whenever I got to the end of the page and clicked 'continue' at the bottom, it just took ages then eventually timed out. I wasted 4 hours trying different ways to load documents but got nowhere.
I've since emailed them through the 'contact us' part of their website, and tried tweeting them. I'll update here if I get any further!

genorm

Although I'm not directly affected by this, I'm extremely concerned that AHPRA have authorised this seemingly 2 bob outfit to look into people's backgrounds.

So much so, that I intend to draft a letter to the Home Office, laying out what is required, and asking if what they are doing is legal in the UK!

@Iscashe, all the points that you make suggest that the integrity of fit2work is at best, a little suspect.

I'll report back ASAP

Pollyana

Like you, I'm not directly affected, but with an interest in immigration, and a historical interest in police checks, I'm planning to look into it a little more. Having spent so many years dealing with the security of criminal histories, and people's concerns about their pasts, I have some serious concerns here.

Iscashe

I too feel suspicious about the whole thing, but don't have much choice but to go through it as I need that AHPRA reg :-( so today I slogged on...

I had a reply to my email from fit2work, telling me to change my web browser to Google Chrome. It seems a bit wrong that I had to do so, and took yet another half an hour of faffing about, but I did it...and it still didn't work.

I think the problem is the size of the files that need uploading...the UK police check document is 4 pages long, plus you need to add a bank statement or utility bill as proof of address, but these cannot be uploaded separately, so I had to merge them into 1 document. I did it as pdf, then word docs, but both files were over 50mB and the page couldn't upload it as it was too big and kept timing out. Eventually after much googling I figured out how to merge the 5 docs into 1 jpeg file, then reduce the quality to low to make the file small enough. So total today of approx 2 and 1/2 hours to complete forms...on top of yesterday's 3 hours of futility.

So basically, you either need a superfast broadband connection, or excellent IT skills, or the patience of a saint to get it to work...(or in my case, the stubbornness of a bunch of angry mules!!)

When I finally got through that, the payment was through Paypal for £86 (converted from $168AUD) and seemed secure; I got an immediate email receipt for payment and acknowledgement of submission of forms. It does not say how long the checks will take - they said they will send a separate email when it's processed.

I'll keep you updated as to progress...assuming there is any!!

genorm

I am continuing my research with a view to questioning these new checks. Unfortunately, I can only comment on UK checks.

The Home Office web site does not recognise the term "International Criminal History Check (ICHC)" when placing it into their search.

The DBS site doesn't list AHPRA, Fit2work or Mercury Recruitment in it's approved 3rd parties section.

The cost of an Enhanced DBS either including or not including lists is £44 ($87). Subject to currency conversion. Mercury charge $149.

The deeper I dig - the murkier it gets!

genorm

OMG - what sort of set up are they? It's up to THEM to make their site work not the user. On top of that they have charged you DOUBLE the actual cost. Did they charge GST - ? I hope not because you are ordering a service from the UK not Australia.

TERRIBLE and disgusting on the part of AHPRA to be a party to this seemingly shady outfit!

BTW, the certificate should come to YOU - not to them!

Iscashe

My feelings exactly...I only wish I had the choice to not do it!

And yes, they charged GST...and from what I've gathered the certificate goes straight to AHPRA, not to me.
And this is just the beginning of my AHPRA nightmare