Law Enforcement Officer Certificates of Compliance

2025-2026 Regular Session Introduced by Gary Brewer and 14 co-sponsors

Requires state and FBI fingerprint background checks for police certification, authorizes SLED/FBI to retain prints for NGI/latent searches, and reports results only to the academy

Referred to Committee on Judiciary

Summary — H 3799: Law Enforcement Officer Certificates of Compliance

Purpose

This bill amends South Carolina Code §23-23-60 to add a requirement that individuals seeking law enforcement certification submit to both state and national fingerprint‑supported criminal background checks, and to authorize retention and limited use of their fingerprints by the South Carolina Law Enforcement Division (SLED) and the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI).

Key provisions

Adds new subsection (E) to S.C. Code §23-23-60.

Requires each applicant for certification under this section to undergo:

A state criminal records check by SLED, supported by fingerprints.
A national (FBI) criminal records check, supported by fingerprints.

Authorizes SLED to retain applicants’ fingerprints for:

Certification purposes.
Notifying the training academy if the applicant is later criminally charged.

Authorizes both SLED and the FBI to retain the applicant’s fingerprints for:

Future submission to the FBI’s Next Generation Identification (NGI) program.
Latent fingerprint searches.

Requires that results of these criminal records checks be reported to the academy and prohibits further dissemination of those results.

Effective date: upon approval by the Governor.

Who is affected

Primary: Individuals applying for law enforcement certification (academy candidates).

Government entities: SLED (responsible for state checks and fingerprint retention), FBI (national check and NGI submission), state law enforcement academies (recipients of check results and notifications).

Secondary: Law enforcement agencies hiring certified officers; potential indirect impacts on applicants’ privacy and hiring decisions.

Procedural / timeline status (as provided)

Introduced: 01/28/2025 (text dated 01/28/2025; bill referred 01/28/2025).

Referred to Committee on Judiciary (listed in header). A hearing was scheduled for 05/13/2025 (B‑2).

Effective upon gubernatorial approval if enacted. Note: the legislative history supplied contains some inconsistent entries (references to Transportation committee and a Senate concurrence). See “Notes” below.

Potential impacts and considerations

Public safety: strengthens vetting by adding FBI fingerprint checks and enabling NGI/latent search use.

Privacy and records retention: authorizes state and federal retention of fingerprints and future submissions to NGI — may raise privacy concerns and legal questions about retention period, access, and use beyond certification.

Operational: increases SLED/FBI workload; may add time and possible costs to the certification process.

Limits on dissemination: the bill states check results are reportable to the academy only and cannot be further disseminated, though retained prints may be used for later searches.

Notes / source inconsistencies

The packet provided also includes unrelated text from a Massachusetts docket (House Docket No. 925 concerning vehicle inspections). That material appears to be a clerical insertion and is not related to the South Carolina amendment to §23‑23‑60. The summary above focuses solely on the South Carolina provision described in the bill text.