Business Screening Services Seal Order Notification Program

Before initiating Registration Process

• Review BSS registration contract with appropriate departments within your organization
• Identify the person from your organization that will be responsible for signing the contract
• Locate business documentation (e.g., W-9, business license)

Registration Process

1. Send an email to seal_questions@vsp.virginia.gov with the subject line Seal Order Notification Registration Request. When submitting your request, please provide the following information:
   • A current IRS Form W‑9 for your agency. This information will be used for preliminary verification and to assess your eligibility to enroll in the program
   • The name and email of the person responsible for signing the contract
2. Sign the contract electronically through the Docusign process initiated by VSP
3. Pay the annual licensing fee
4. Designate authorized users for BSS portal access
5. Implement required data security measures
6. Set up procedures for record management and dispute resolution

Annual Licensing Fee

• All approved BSS agencies are required to pay an annual licensing fee of $30,000 per account.
• The fee is due in full at the time of initial registration, before the agency is granted access to the seal order portal.
• After initial registration, a renewal fee of $30,000 is due each year on the anniversary of the agency’s registration date.
• Failure to pay the annual licensing renewal fee by the due date will result in suspension of access to seal order information and, if not corrected, closure of the BSS account in accordance with the program requirements.

Participating Agencies

Resources

Seal Order Notification Access & Download Guide

To assist BSS users, VSP made available a downloadable step‑by‑step guide that explains how to access the Seal Order Notification Portal, review seal order notifications, and download associated seal order files.The guide is intended to help authorized users navigate the portal and understand the basic workflow for receiving and retrieving seal order information made available through the VSP notification process.

Seal Order Notification Access & Download Guide

Sample Seal Order File

To assist prospective Business Screening Service (BSS) agencies in preparing their internal systems for receiving and processing seal order notifications, Virginia State Police has made available a sample seal order file.

This sample file is intended solely for technical design and testing purposes. Agencies may use it to develop and validate their file ingestion, parsing, and suppression processes to ensure that sealed criminal history record (CHR) information is identified and removed from dissemination workflows.

Download

• Seal Order Sample File (.psv)

Important Notice:

• The sample file contains synthetic, non‑identifiable data created for demonstration purposes only.
• All BSS agencies are responsible for designing secure and automated production processes that immediately suppress or delete any CHR data listed in official seal order files transmitted by VSP.
• Dissemination or sharing of sealed criminal history information, in whole or in part, is strictly prohibited under Virginia law (§ 19.2-392.16).
• Each registered BSS agency must validate that its systems can receive seal orders, updating records promptly, and preventing dissemination of sealed or expunged data.

Legal

• Full text of Virginia Code § 19.2-392.16
• BSS Registration Contract

Interface Control Document (ICD)

To help BSS agencies prepare their information systems for receiving seal order notifications, VSP provides a downloadable Interface Control Document (ICD).

This ICD explains how seal order notification files will be delivered and what each field in the file means. Agencies can use it to design and test their internal parsing, matching, and suppression workflows before going live with the program. The ICD includes useful information such as File layout and format, Field-by-field definitions and sample values, etc. Agencies are strongly encouraged to review the ICD with their technical teams and incorporate it into their development and testing activities to ensure sealed criminal history information is promptly identified and is no longer disseminated once a seal order is received.

• BSS Seal Notifications Services ICD v1.0

FAQs