Existing law requires the Department of Justice to maintain state summary criminal history information, as defined, and to furnish this information to various state and local government officers, officials, and other prescribed entities, if needed in the course of their duties. Existing law makes it a misdemeanor to furnish criminal history information to a person who is not authorized by law to receive it.

Existing law requires employees of entities that have contracts with a private school or heritage school and provide services, including schoolsite administrative or grounds, landscape maintenance and instruction, to provide their fingerprints to the department, as specified. Existing law requires employees of an entity that contracts with a local educational agency to, if the employee interacts with pupils without the immediate supervision of, among others, a school employee, complete a criminal background check, as specified. Under existing law, a county, city, city and county, or special district is required to have specified prospective employees or volunteers complete a background check that inquires as to whether the applicant has been convicted of certain offenses. Existing law also requires the submission of fingerprints to the department for certifying a massage professional, licensing a professional fiduciary, registering a tax preparer, confirming the appointment of a humane officer, working for a bank or its affiliates, and licensing an escrow agent, as specified. Existing law requires the department to ascertain whether the individual whose fingerprints were submitted has been arrested or convicted of a crime and notify the employer if the person has been convicted of specified felonies. Existing law authorizes the department to notify specified entities of pending criminal proceedings.

This bill would instead require those background checks to be submitted pursuant to the provisions above and would make conforming changes.

Existing law authorizes a human resource agency, as defined, or a nonprofit corporation or other organization specified by the Attorney General that employs or uses the services of volunteers in positions in which the volunteer or employee has supervisory or disciplinary power over a child or children to request from the department records of all convictions or any arrest pending adjudication involving specified offenses of a person who applies for a license, employment, or volunteer position in which they would have supervisory or disciplinary power over a minor or any person under their care.

This bill would revise and recast those provisions to instead allow a qualified entity, as defined, to require a covered individual, as defined, to undergo a fingerprint-based state and national criminal history background check and would authorize a qualified entity to get a subsequent arrest notification pursuant to the provisions above. By expanding access to criminal history information, this bill would expand a crime and therefore impose a state-mandated local program.

The bill would make any statutory requirement for an entity to conduct a federal criminal history information check for licensing, certification, or employment purposes inapplicable until the Federal Bureau of Investigation authorizes the entity to conduct a federal criminal history information check, as specified. If the Federal Bureau of Investigation authorizes an entity to conduct a federal criminal history information check, the bill would require the entity to require an applicant, licensee, certified individual, or employee who did not previously undergo a federal criminal history information check to resubmit their fingerprints for that purpose.

Existing law requires an application used to determine the eligibility to own a firearm to include 2 copies of the applicant's fingerprints.

This bill would instead require an applicant for a certificate of eligibility and a dangerous weapons license or permit issued by the department, including, among other weapons, an assault weapon or short-barreled shotgun, to submit to the department fingerprint images and related information for purposes of conducting a state and national criminal history background check, as specified, and for the purpose of determining if the applicant is prohibited by state or federal law from possessing, receiving, owning, or purchasing a firearm. The bill would require the department to retain the fingerprint impressions for subsequent arrest notification, as specified.

The California Constitution requires the state to reimburse local agencies and school districts for certain costs mandated by the state. Statutory provisions establish procedures for making that reimbursement.

This bill would provide that no reimbursement is required by this act for a specified reason.

This bill would declare that it is to take effect immediately as an urgency statute.