Obviously, getting someone you know who has the authority to access your files is most likely illegal.
Indeed it would be.
But, there are other ways to find out less specific information. For instance, when applying to do volunteer work, depending on the work the charity organisation will need various levels of police clearance before they let you volunteer.
There are a sum total of three levels of private sector clearance which I have ever come across.
1) A standard National Police Certificate. All that is displayed on such a certificate are 'discloseable outcomes' - non spent findings of guilt or convictions, as recorded by a court. No cautions. No warnings. No diversions. Victoria does have an interesting quirk in that it will also note on certificates if you are currently under investigation (we're not talking covert here, you'd have been interviewed) or have been released without charge pending summons.
2) A Working With Children Check. There are three categories (in Victoria at least) into which your application will fall; approved, show cause, or must refuse. Again, how your check goes is based on the findings of a court, however spent conviction legislation policy (as we don't have specific legislation for 'spent' convictions in Victoria) does not apply. The main scope of these checks is for sex offences, but also includes some drug and violence offences. While a whole lot of things are taken into account with such a check, as the Victorian Department of Justice will go through many sources of information, passing such a check will not provide any indication of anything ongoing or investigation, or any feedback unless you fall into the show cause or must refuse category. You are going to be quite aware upon review of the explanatory notes DOJ provides as to which category you fall into.
3) Melbourne's Crown Casino's 'Police Information' form. I've never seen anything like it. As distinct from a gaming licence, before Crown Casino will proceed with anything with you, they want you to fill out a form, specially prepared for Crown, which by some bizarre, unlegislated arrangement, upon your consent, lets them see absolutely EVERYTHING the police know, think, thought or have thought about you.
I must stress that I am not saying to use reasons such as these to find out if you're a fuck up - because that is fucken horrible. But if you have volunteered for different types of Community Service in the past - particularly more sensitive CS (I'm not talking about cleaning median strips), then you have passed a police clearance check - and some of these checks are quite stringent.
I'm aware of a guy with in excess of 30 findings of guilt, including 29 indictables (serious offences), who passed such checks to do similarly sensitive work. It is discretionary on the part of the agency or they may have an internal policy. Bottom line, they have no more access to your information than you will.
Visa applications to certain (few) countries also involve a request for detailed criminal history. Look at where you have traveled. Have you ever been denied a visa? Have you ever applied for a job that required a police clearance? What field was the job in? What I am saying is that you can work out if you have black marks (to a certain extent) through deduction.
When you apply for a Visa, you are supplying a National Police Certificate. It won't tell you anything you didn't already know (unless of course you once didn't rock up to Court on a summary offence summons and a conviction was recorded in your absence and you didn't realise, as does happen with monotonous regularity)
I would like to make it clear that even for a law abiding citizen who has mainly stayed above the law (despite the occasional non-criminal fuckup) there is a surprisingly huge, detailed amount of information stored about you on a computer out there. I remember when I was younger my parents always telling me to just keep my nose clear of the police as much as possible - and I used to think they were paranoid, old commies.
John Schumann of Redgum couldn't have put it more clearly in the song ASIO:
"You're life's in a databank..."
If you have ever been spoken to by the police in any capacity, come to police attention in any way, shape or form, (including having been a victim of crime and reported it), or through myriad other channels, you now have a Master Names Index number, a unique identifier which you will carry for life, and you are now in the federal Government system which tracks vehicles, DNA and fingerprints known as CrimTrac. Fact.
Bottom line - disclosable outcomes et al can be accessed by you at any time by coughing up the fee for your National Police Certificate, and volunteering for organisations or trying to go about visa checks etc etc are not a definitive or even an effective way of getting an indication as to police opinion of your character or conduct, which I believe was the thrust of the post I replied to.
No flaming, I'm just replying.
