The UK’s regulator the Security Industry Authority (SIA) will be updating the conditions and criteria it uses for licensing decisions on December 1. The Authority says the new criteria will further toughen the SIA’s approach to criminality and provide greater transparency on the wider ‘fit and proper’ test that all applicants and licence holders must meet.
The SIA will expand the list of criminal offences it considers relevant in its licensing decisions. The updated list will include a wider range of offences that affect whether someone is considered ‘fit and proper’ to hold a licence, such as modern slavery, people trafficking and up-skirting (taking pictures up women’s skirts without their knowledge or consent). The SIA adds that it will also be updating its criminality criteria. The changes will include:
- Further tightening the rules around refusing a licence where an applicant has any criminal record that includes a sexual offence, child abuse or neglect offence, or a prison sentence of more than 48 months. The SIA says it already gives careful consideration to applications involving these offences and is proposing to refuse all such applications in future unless the applicant can convince the SIA that they are not a public protection risk.
- Applying a tougher approach to custodial sentences of more than 12 months where more checks and mitigation will be required to demonstrate that the applicant is fit and proper to hold a licence.
- Requiring applicants who have lived overseas for six or more continuous months in the last ten years to provide an overseas criminal record check when they apply for an SIA licence. At present this requirement only covers the last five years. The change brings the SIA’s rules more in line with the criminality checks required for UK visas where someone will be working in education, health or social care.
- Making clearer the range of other information that the SIA may consider when deciding whether someone is ‘fit and proper’ to hold a licence – for example, for domestic violence orders or being subject to misconduct or other disciplinary proceedings.
The new criteria will be applied to all licence applications from Monday, December 1, 2025. The regulator says that all applicants for an SIA licence should check the licensing criteria to see if they are likely to be eligible for a licence before they start an application. This includes licence holders applying to renew their licence. More guidance will be provided to licence holders and applicants before the new criteria take effect, including on the SIA website.
Consultation
The SIA will be introducing the new criteria after its public consultation on the proposed changes between March and May 2025 that received over 3,300 responses. The results of the consultation found support for the proposals among SIA licence holders and private security businesses. The latest developments for the regulator were presented announced by Home Office security minister Dan Jarvis on October 1 in a speech at the International Security Expo at London Olympia.
Tim Archer, Director of Licensing and Standards at the SIA, who was among those present on the SIA’s booth at the Expo, said: “The SIA’s current robust licensing processes help ensure public trust and confidence in the private security industry. These changes will further strengthen these processes and support our drive to improve standards within the industry.”
Photo by Mark Rowe: SIA-badged security officer on duty outside Olympia during the Expo.
