New South Wales Consolidated Acts

CRIMINAL RECORDS ACT 1991 - SECT 13

13 Unlawful disclosure of information concerning spent convictions

(1) A person who has access to records of convictions kept by or on behalf of a public authority and who, without lawful authority, discloses to any other person any information concerning a spent conviction is guilty of an offence.

Maximum penalty: 50 penalty units or imprisonment for 6 months, or both.

(2) It is not an offence for the officer in charge of the Criminal Records Unit of the Police Service to make information relating to a spent conviction available to a law enforcement agency or to the holder of an office prescribed by the regulations.

(3) It is not an offence for an archive or library (or an authorised officer of an archive or library) to make available to a member of the public, or to another archive or library, in accordance with the normal procedures of the archive or library, material that is normally available for public use and that contains information relating to a spent conviction.

(4) It is not an offence for a law enforcement agency (or an authorised officer of a law enforcement agency) in the discharge of its duties (or of the authorised officer’s duties) to make information relating to a spent conviction available to another law enforcement agency or to a court in compliance with an order of the court.

(4A) It is not an offence for a person to make information relating to a spent conviction available in accordance with section 38 of the Commission for Children and Young People Act 1998 .

(5) In this section:
"law enforcement agency" means any of the following:

(a) the Police Service,

(b) the Australian Federal Police,

(c) the police force of another State or a Territory,

(d) the Australian Crime Commission,

(e) the Australian Bureau of Criminal Intelligence,

(f) the National Exchange of Police Information,

(g) the Independent Commission Against Corruption or a similar body established under the law of another legislature in Australia,

(h) the New South Wales Crime Commission or a similar body established under the law of another legislature in Australia,

(i) the Attorney General for the Commonwealth or for a State or Territory,

(j) persons employed in the Attorney General’s Department or a similar Department of the Commonwealth, another State or a Territory, or employed in a body administered by such a Department, being persons whose primary function is the institution or conduct of proceedings for offences,

(k) the Office of the Director of Public Prosecutions or a similar body established under a law of another legislature in Australia,

(l) the Director of Public Prosecutions, or a person performing a similar function, appointed under a law of another legislature in Australia,

(m) a Crown Prosecutor,

(n) an Australian legal practitioner to the extent to which the Australian legal practitioner is engaged by or on behalf of the Crown to prosecute an offence,

(o) a person or body prescribed for the purpose of this definition by the regulations.