Overseas Police Checks

Introduction

Any applicants who have spent time outside of the UK may need to obtain an Overseas Police check from the country/countries in which you have lived in/are currently living in. Please be aware that the Overseas Police check document may be called something different according to the country you are requesting it from.

Do I need an Overseas Police Check?

You will need to obtain an Overseas Police check if the following applies to you:

If you are over 18 and are currently living overseas.
If you are over 18 and have lived overseas in the last 10 years for either: More than 6 months in total; or for 12 months or more cumulatively over the 10-year period.

You will need an Overseas Police check for each country that this applies to. This condition applies regardless of your Nationality or Fee status. Please note that the Overseas Police check requirement is to be done in addition to your UK DBS check.

Please contact the DBS Team if you have any questions or if you believe you do not require an Overseas Police check.

Important points to note

It is your responsibility to obtain the relevant Overseas Police Check. Please see the ‘Getting your Overseas Police Check’ section below for further guidance.
Date of issue of document: we need an overseas police check dated no more than 3 months before your course start date (For example if you are a September starter your Overseas Police Check should not be dated any earlier than June). If you already have one but it is older than this, you will need to re-apply in due course for an up-to-date version. If you have left or will be leaving the country concerned before then, the document needs to be dated as close as possible to your leaving date.
Translation: if the document is issued in a language other than English, French, Spanish, Italian or German, you will need to arrange to get this translated into English by an official translation service. This is done at your expense.

Getting your Overseas Police Check

For the Republic of Ireland

You need to submit a ‘Data Access Request’ on the Garda's specified form (F20): please note that you must submit this form to the Data Protection Unit of the Garda in Dublin and not your local Garda. The request has to be in the specific format explained on the Garda Data Protection Unit's Data Access Request form.

Please do not confuse this with a Garda ‘Police Certificate’, which they will not issue to a UK university, or Garda Vetting, which the University of Cumbria is not registered to request and which you as an individual can not obtain. For an overview please refer to the Garda's Data Protection webpage, where you can also find a link to the Data Access Request form that you need.

To assist you with completing the form in the 'Part 2 - Details of Request' section, please note the following: -

In the section asking ‘Please outline details of the data sought’, please state: “Any information held in the Garda Criminal Records Database. This is requested in relation to a course of study in the UK involving contact with children or adults in vulnerable groups”.
In the section asking ‘If making a request for specific data, and in order to assist us in locating this data, please indicate the location within An Garda Síochána, where you believe your personal data may be held’, please state: “Garda Criminal Records Database”.
In the section asking ‘Please indicate the date/time period to which the requested data relates', please state the month and year of your birth until the current month and year.

The completed form must be returned to the Garda Data Protection Unit at the Dublin address given here or at the end of the form, or via email to the address given. Please do not return the form to the University.

For all other countries

Information for many other countries is listed on the Home Office’s website. Please look for the country concerned in the relevant document of the three shown (arranged alphabetically). There is also a list of FAQs.

If you cannot find the information you need on the page above, please see the NPSA’s website and scroll to page 4 for an alphabetical list of countries covered by this guidance: please click on the blue button for the country concerned (if it is in the list).

If the country you require is not included on either website, please contact the local police in your home country (or the embassy if you are now living in the UK), who should be able to advise further.

Once you have your Overseas Police Check

Please check that:

Your name is spelt correctly.
Your address is correct.
Your date of birth (if shown) is correct.
The document has a clear issue date (should be dated no more than 3 months before your course start date).
If required, that you have an English translation of the Overseas Police check.

You must then upload a clear scan/image of the document via your University of Cumbria applicant portal. We will contact you at that point if there are any issues with the document. We do not need to see the original document, and please do not post this to us.

If you have any questions, please contact us by email at: dbs@cumbria.ac.uk or by phone on 01228 242914/01228 242928.

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