CPIC Explained: What the Canadian Police Information Centre Holds
CPIC is the database police query when they run your name. It is not the same thing as a criminal record check, and it holds a good deal more than convictions.
CPIC — the Canadian Police Information Centre — is the RCMP-operated national system that Canadian police services use to share information about people, vehicles and property. It is an index and a query tool rather than a single record, and access is restricted to accredited agencies.
What Is CPIC?
CPIC is the national law enforcement information system operated by the RCMP on behalf of Canadian policing. When an officer runs your name at the roadside or at a station, CPIC is generally what they are querying.
It is not a public database. Access is limited to accredited criminal justice and law enforcement agencies, and you cannot search it about yourself or anyone else. What a member of the public can obtain is a criminal record check, which is a different product produced under different rules.
It is also not confined to convictions. CPIC indexes a range of operational information, which is why something can appear when police query you that would not appear on an employment record check.
What Does CPIC Hold About a Person?
- Convictions recorded in the RCMP's national repository of criminal records.
- Outstanding charges, and warrants for arrest.
- Court-ordered conditions in force, including bail and probation terms, no-contact and no-go conditions.
- Prohibition orders, including weapons and driving prohibitions.
- Persons of interest and missing persons entries.
- Vehicle and property entries, such as stolen vehicles.
The presence of live court conditions is the practical reason CPIC matters day to day. If you are on release conditions, an officer who stops you can see them immediately, which is precisely why conditions should be understood and followed rather than assumed to be invisible.
Does CPIC Show Charges That Were Withdrawn?
A withdrawn or stayed charge is not a conviction and does not belong in the conviction repository. Police services do, however, retain their own occurrence records, and entries can persist in local systems after a matter ends.
This is a common source of confusion. Someone whose charge was withdrawn may still find that police appear to know about it, because the local record and the national conviction record are different things held by different bodies.
What shows on an employment check is governed by Ontario's Police Record Checks Reform Act, 2015, not by what police can see internally. Those two questions have different answers, and it is worth being clear about which one you are asking.
Can CPIC Be Seen at the Border?
United States border officials have access to Canadian criminal record information, and it is well established that they may see Canadian convictions. An officer at a port of entry is not limited to what an Ontario employment check would disclose.
This is why a record suspension does not guarantee entry to the United States. A record suspension is a Canadian instrument; American admissibility is decided under American law by American officers who may already hold the information.
Anyone whose real concern is travel should get advice directed at that question specifically, rather than assuming a clear Canadian check settles it.
How Do You Find Out What Is on Your Record?
You cannot query CPIC yourself, but you can obtain your own criminal record from the RCMP through a fingerprint-based check, and you can request a police record check from your local police service.
A fingerprint-based certified check is the authoritative version and is what a record suspension application requires. A name-based check is faster but less reliable, particularly for common names.
If you believe an entry is wrong, the correction route depends on who holds it — the RCMP for the national repository, or the police service that created a local occurrence record.
Frequently asked questions
Browse every answer on this siteThe Canadian Police Information Centre, the national law enforcement information system operated by the RCMP and used by Canadian police services to share information about people, vehicles and property.
No. Access is restricted to accredited criminal justice and law enforcement agencies. You can instead obtain your own criminal record from the RCMP through a fingerprint-based check, or a police record check from your local service.
Yes. Court-ordered conditions in force, including bail and probation terms and no-contact orders, are among the entries police can see when they query a name.
A withdrawn charge is not a conviction and does not belong in the national conviction repository, but police services keep their own occurrence records, which can persist locally after a matter ends.
They have access to Canadian criminal record information and may see convictions. This is why a Canadian record suspension does not guarantee entry to the United States, which is decided under American law.
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This page is general information about Canadian law, not legal advice, and reading it does not create a lawyer-client relationship. Statutes are amended; provisions are described as at the consolidation reviewed when this page was written.
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