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To be able to access the NCIS directly, you should either be a
death investigator assisting the coroner (forensic scientist,
pathologist, police assisting) or fall within the definition of a
third party user. At present, direct access
is not available to media or private organisations, however
de-identified statistics can be produced for these agencies
for an applicable fee.
If you are a third party you will need to submit an application
form to the NCIS. All third party applications
will then be referred to the Victorian Department of Justice
Research Ethics
Committee for consideration. See our information sheet for more
details. If your application seeks to access identifying information
from Western Australia, you will also be required to submit an
application to the Western Australian Coronial Ethics Committee.
The NCIS team will
assist with this process.
Death investigation users should contact the NCIS, and we will arrange
for the appropriate authorisation to be provided from the State
or Chief Coroner
in your jurisdiction.
If you only need de-identified statistics for a one-off occasion,
it may be more timely and cost effective to contact the NCIS and have
us do a search for you and provide you with the information you require. An hourly
fee is applicable, with a quote provided to applicants before
any work is undertaken. The information request form is available
here.
While there is no charge for access to individuals who are assisting
the coroner, third party users do have to pay a fee to access the NCIS.
For further information on the pricing schedule, please contact
the Manager of the NCIS.
A Third Party is an Australian individual or organisation
with a role or interest in public health and safety or with
a statutorily mandated statistical role. This includes
Commonwealth, State and Territory government departments and
agencies, University research centres, and other research
organisations/agencies with a role or interest in public
health and safety or death and injury surveillance.
Commercial and media organisations are not currently eligible
for third party access to the NCIS.
Level 1 access allows users to access identifying information
about coronial cases (name, residential address, DOB, full text documents)
once the case has been finalised with the coroner, and closed on the NCIS.
Level 1 access will therefore be required should users wish to view coronial
findings, autopsy reports or any other full text documents on the system.
As the NCIS does not contain all information from a coronial file
(such as witness statements, photos, expert reports) there may be some
occasions when the information required is not accessible via the system.
In these cases, NCIS will liaise with the relevant coroners office on your
behalf to request such information as appropriate, or facilitate access to
the hard copy coronial files.
There are two reasons a document may not be attached to a case –
the procedure associated with that document may not have been produced
(i.e no toxicology screen done) or there may be technical issues which
preclude the NCIS from having access to the document.
NCIS is continually working to obtain as many documents in electronic
form as possible, however sometimes country reports may only be
available in a paper form, or laboratory systems may not yet be
able to transfer their reports electronically. For an update on the
documents we do routinely obtain from the various states and territories,
click here.
Third Party users with Level 1
access are only able to view identifying information once cases are
finalised with the coroner, and closed on the NCIS. Therefore if a
case status is still open, you will be unable to view any full text
documents, or other identifying fields until that case is closed.
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NCIS Access for Authorised Users
