What is a BCIA Form and what are Common Mistakes and Pitfalls?

Posted 10 months ago by Kathleen Erickson

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Kathleen Erickson
Kathleen Erickson Admin

BCIA stands for Bureau of Criminal Information and Analysis. There are multiple versions of this form and some agencies have created derivatives of this form. Rule of Thumb: When someone presents you with a BCIA form, you must ensure that you enter the information that you see on this form into your livescan demographics screen. Some common mistakes and pitfalls include:


  • Agency and Billing Number don't match. - In this case, the agency is either using an old form or there is a problem with their billing account and they will need to contact the billing department. It's also possible that you may not updated your livescan tables recently. Remember, your livescan validation tables should be no older than 30-days.
  • Can't find the OCA number. - The BCIA form may or may not have an OCA number listed on the form. It is not required for all agencies. If it is listed, you will typically find it under the applicant's signature on the BCIA form. The field name is either Your Number or Facility Number. If you see a number listed, enter that number into the Your Number Set field in the livescan demographic's screen. 
  • The Agency didn't receive the result. - Some agency's require a social security number to be entered into the livescan record even though CalDoJ does not make this a required field. If the applicant's social security number was on the BCIA form and you did not enter it into the livescan demographic screen, this may be why the agency did not receive the background check results. The 2nd thing to do is to verify that the record was processed by CalDoJ by visiting https://applicantstatus.doj.ca.gov/  You'll need to enter the applicants birthday and Applicant Tracking Identifier (ATI) number. If the record has been processed successfully, it is mostly likely that the results didn't get passed to the agency for lack of a social security number. If the record is not found, contact your account rep (kathleen.e@fulcrumbiometrics.com) for additional guidance. 
  • The Person doesn't have a BCIA form or they didn't complete it. If the record you are creating for this applicant is going to be submitted to CalDoJ, per the Guidelines that CalDoJ has provided to you, you should not fingerprint this person until they arrive with a completed BCIA form. The fingerprints that you collect must be transmitted within 24-hours, so it does no good to create the fingerprint records and add additional details later unless they can provide it within 24-hours.


Please give a thumbs up if this topic is helpful to you and share some of your own thoughts about this topic. Thank you.


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Kathleen Erickson

Kathleen Erickson posted 7 days ago Admin

Hi Victor,


I'm sorry for the delay in responding. I'm just now seeing your post. The CalDoJ specifications do not require a SSN. However, you are correct that for some jobs, the applicant must provide their SSN and it must be entered into the livescan transaction field. I have always stated that whatever is on the BCIA 8016 form must go into the livescan transaction fields. Have your applicants verify that their information is correct and complete. This way the livescan operator will have peace of mind that everything is entered correctly and is complete, 


If the applicant does not provide their social security number you could have them sign a disclaimer stating that if the agency fails to receive their background check results because the applicant did not provide an SSN, they agree to be fingerprinted again and provide their SSN at their cost - meaning they will have to pay for the fingerprinting and state/FBI fees again. In absence of this, you will need to fingerprint them again and you will be responsible for paying the fees because the initial record was not rejected.


As for correcting and resending a previously sent record, you can only do that if the initial record submitted is less than 24 hours old. This is stated in your Guidelines for Transmitting Live Scan Transactions to CalDoJ. If you catch it early enough, you can clone the transmitted record, edit it, then transmit it as a new record. Don't label it as a resubmission. You will need to pay for the 2nd record if the applicant didn't sign a disclaimer. You might be able to convince the applicant that they need to pay for the 2nd submission if they did not put the SSN on the BCIA 8016 form and didn't indicate anything needed to be corrected in the record. I think that would be fair. 


Keep a list of those jobs that require SSN. If you could post that list in this forum, that would be helpful. I'll reach out to CalDoJ as well to see if I can get a list, 


Cheers,

Kathleen

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Victor Holz posted 15 days ago

Hi there,


I have been running into this issue lately, what is the next step if an applicant did not provide a SS # ? Apparently some applicants are not aware that the SS# is mandatory and are reaching out to me say that the agency has not received their prints? Can they be resent after adding the SS# or do the need to start the process over and pay again?


Thank you

DLS

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