WWCC renewals in under 10 minutes for those in New South Wales

The New South Wales Government has introduced a new option for Working with Children Check (WWCC) holders to renew their mandatory clearances in as little as 10 minutes.

The new renewal option saves workers up to 1 hour and allows people to complete the administrative task from the comfort of their own home or office.

Early childhood education and care (ECEC) professionals, teachers and volunteers are among the roughly 1.9 million people in NSW who hold a Working with Children Check, and those in regional areas will particularly benefit from the new online renewal option.

More than 3000 people have renewed their WWCC online since the option launched late last year, with 98 per cent providing positive feedback on the transaction.

The online verification for WWCC is a significant step in the NSW Government’s digital identity journey, removing the need to share copies of physical documents and cards to prove an identity.

“The new online option for renewing your Working with Children Check is a great example of how we are using technology to improve access to government services and helping people save valuable time,” Minister for Customer Service and Digital Government Jihad Dib said.

“The new process is streamlined, efficient and secure, cutting the transaction time from 70 minutes to 10 minutes on average and helping to pave the way for more uses of photo verification technology in the future.”

The identity checks use advanced facial verification technology that can securely verify a person’s identity and detect their presence through a liveness check, to confirm authenticity.

Service NSW will confirm the identity of a person by matching their live facial scan with the reference image associated with them, such as the photo that was taken when a driver licence was issued.

To preserve privacy and safeguard against fraud, photographs used for verification are immediately and permanently destroyed after the real-time check is completed.

Renewing a WWCC using digital proof of identity is optional and people can still apply in-person at Service NSW.