Criminal Records

This Act establishes a clean slate scheme to limit the effect of an individual's convictions in most circumstances (subject to certain exceptions) if the individual satisfies the relevant eligibility criteria.

If an individual satisfies the relevant eligibility criteria,—

(a) he or she is deemed to have no criminal record for the purposes of any question asked of him or her about his or her criminal record; and

(b) he or she has the right to have his or her criminal record concealed by government departments and law enforcement agencies that hold or have access to his or her criminal record.

Get a copy of the Act

You may download a PDF copy of the Act, and make as many copies as you like (New Zealand legislation has no copyright.) This service is free.

This PDF copy shows the Act in the same format as the official hard copy. To view this file, you must have Adobe Acrobat Reader installed. You can download this software for free from adobe.com.