How to Fill Out the BCIA 8016: Request for Live Scan Service

To fill out the BCIA 8016 Request for Live Scan Service, complete only the applicant section in the middle of the form: your full legal name, any other names you’ve used, date of birth, sex, height, weight, eye and hair color, Social Security number, driver’s license number, and home address. The top section belongs to the requesting agency and should already be filled in when they hand you the form. The bottom section is for the Live Scan operator and stays blank until your appointment.¹

The form has three zones, and knowing which one is yours is the whole trick to filling it out correctly.

The Agency Section at the Top

This section is not yours to complete. Your employer, licensing board, or volunteer organization is responsible for it, and most agencies hand you a pre-filled form. You should still know what belongs there, because errors in this section are the reason submissions come back rejected, and the applicant is usually the one who has to fix them.

The agency section contains:

The ORI (Originating Agency Identifier), a Department of Justice code that routes your results to the correct agency.¹
The Type of Application, such as Employment, License, Permit, or Peace Officer. This tells the DOJ what criminal history it is authorized to share with the agency.¹
The agency name and mailing address, sometimes provided as a pre-printed label.
The Mail Code, a DOJ-assigned number used for agencies that receive responses electronically or by fax.
The Billing Number, a six-digit DOJ number. If it’s listed, the agency pays the state and federal processing fees. If it’s blank, you pay those fees at the Live Scan site.¹

If your form arrived with any of these blank, contact the requesting agency and ask them to supply the information. The ORI and application type in particular are not things you can look up on your own, and guessing will send your results to the wrong place or authorize the wrong level of disclosure. A blank BCIA 8016 is available on the Attorney General’s forms page if you need one.²

The Applicant Section You Complete

Everything in the middle of the form is yours. Fill it in with a pen, in clear print, and make sure every entry matches your photo ID exactly.

Name

Enter your full legal name: last, first, middle. The name you write here has to match the name on the photo ID you’ll present to the Live Scan operator. If it doesn’t match, the operator can refuse to run the scan.

If you’ve been known by other names — a maiden name, a prior married name, aliases, or any variation that might appear on a court or agency record — list those too. Leaving them off can cause the DOJ to miss a record match under one of your other names, which then surfaces later as an unexplained discrepancy.

Date of Birth

Month, day, and year. This is one of the two fields (with name) most often responsible for kicked-back submissions. Verify it against your ID before you leave the house.

Physical Descriptors

Sex, height, weight, eye color, and hair color. Use the values from your driver’s license or state ID if you have one, so the information matches other records the DOJ may pull.

Social Security Number

Providing your Social Security number is not always legally required, but including it substantially reduces the risk of a misidentified record — the DOJ uses it as a secondary matching field, which helps prevent your fingerprints from being matched to someone else’s criminal history by name and birth date alone.

Driver’s License Number

Your California driver’s license or state ID number, if you have one. If you hold an out-of-state license, use that number.

Home Address

Your current residential address. This field is mandatory when the background check includes a Child Abuse Central Index search or when the governing statute requires the DOJ to notify you directly of the results.¹ Even when it isn’t strictly required by statute, agencies expect it, and leaving it blank creates delay.

The Operator Section Stays Blank

Do not fill in anything below the applicant section. The Live Scan operator completes the equipment information, the date of the scan, and your Applicant Transaction Identifier (ATI) number after your fingerprints are captured. If you write in these fields, the operator will likely make you start on a fresh form.

Mistakes That Cause Rejection

The most common reason a Live Scan submission is rejected has nothing to do with fingerprint quality. It’s data entry: a misspelled name, a wrong date of birth, a transposed digit in the ORI, or an address field left blank when the application type requires one. Before you leave for your appointment, go through the form field by field and check:

Your name matches your photo ID letter for letter, including middle name or middle initial.
Your date of birth is written in the format the form uses and matches your ID.
The ORI on the pre-filled form is exactly what the requesting agency provided in writing. Typos here mean your results go nowhere.
The Type of Application box is checked or filled in.
Your home address is complete if the check involves child care, elder care, or any application requiring direct DOJ notification.

If the agency gave you a pre-filled form, verify their entries too. Once you sign and submit, the errors are yours to sort out.

What to Bring to the Live Scan Appointment

Bring the completed BCIA 8016 and a valid, unexpired photo ID. The DOJ requires photo identification, and expired cards are not accepted.³ A state driver’s license or U.S. passport works at any location. Some private Live Scan providers ask for two forms of ID, so confirm requirements when you schedule.

Bring payment as well. You may owe up to three separate fees:

A $32 DOJ processing fee for the state criminal history check.
A $17 FBI processing fee for the federal check, if your application type requires one. The Level of Service boxes on the form determine whether an FBI check is included.⁴
A rolling fee set by the Live Scan site itself, typically between $20 and $50.⁴

If the form shows a billing number in the agency section, the DOJ and FBI fees are charged to the agency and you only owe the rolling fee. If no billing number appears, be prepared to pay all three. Payment methods vary by site, so call ahead if you need to use a credit card.

You can locate a certified operator through the DOJ’s directory of Live Scan locations, which includes UPS stores, shipping centers, police departments, and dedicated fingerprinting businesses.³ Walk-ins are accepted at some sites; an appointment avoids a wasted trip.

After the Form Is Complete

At your appointment, the operator will verify your identity against your ID, enter or confirm the form data in the Live Scan system, and capture your fingerprints on a glass scanner. The session usually takes about 15 minutes. When it’s finished, the operator writes an ATI (Applicant Transaction Identifier) number on your copy of the form. Keep that copy. The ATI is the only way to track the status of the background check afterward through the DOJ’s applicant status tool.⁵

For applicants with no criminal history match, results typically reach the requesting agency within 48 to 72 hours.⁵ You won’t receive a copy of a clearance notification yourself; the DOJ sends results directly to the agency listed in the form’s top section, which is exactly why the ORI and agency information on that top section have to be right before you sign.

1
California Department of Justice. Guidelines for Completing Request for Live Scan Service Form
2
Office of the Attorney General. Forms for Applicant Agencies
3
Office of the Attorney General. Live Scan Locations
4
Contractors State License Board. Step 6 Get Fingerprinted Live Scan
5
Office of the Attorney General. Fingerprint Background Checks