Guidance

Learn how we enforce SIA regulation

SIA regulation: how the SIA enforces the law and what the penalties are for breaking it.

• From: Security Industry Authority
• Published: 13 October 2020
• Last updated: 10 November 2020 — See all updates

Criminal offences

The Private Security Industry Act 2001 made certain activities illegal, so if you do them you are breaking the law (this is sometimes referred to as ‘committing a criminal offence’).

You will be breaking the law if you do any of the following:

• engaging in licensable conduct without a licence [Section 3(1)]
• contravening licence conditions [Section 9(4)]
• obstructing SIA officials or those with delegated authority, or failing to respond to a request for information [Section 19(5)]
• making false statements to the SIA [Section 22(1)]
• employing unlicensed persons in licensable conduct [Section 5(1)]
• using unlicensed vehicle immobilisers [Section 6(1)]
• falsely claiming approved contractor status [Section 16(2)]

Penalties for breaking the law

We expect you to obey the law at all times.

If you break the law we can:

• issue you with a written warning, which can be taken into account in future licensing or enforcement decisions
• (if you are a business) issue you with an improvement notice
• revoke or suspend your licence
• prosecute you – if found guilty you can be fined and/or imprisoned
• seek to confiscate your assets under the Proceeds of Crime Act 2002

Prosecutions

Prosecution is not our preferred option. We will usually try working with you first, to help you meet your legal obligations. Still, we can prosecute you if we have to.

We can prosecute you for the offences listed above. We can also prosecute you for other offences that could have a detrimental impact on the industry - for example fraud, forgery and counterfeiting, or offences under the Identity Documents Act 2010.

Find out who we are prosecuting or read about who we have prosecuted.

Criminal investigations

Before we prosecute you we will conduct a criminal investigation to determine:

• whether there is sufficient evidence that an offence was committed
• whether there is any statutory defence
• who is liable for the offence
• whether a prosecution is in the public interest

We usually do not publish details of who we are investigating, but we can if there is a good reason for doing so.

Some examples of when we might do this are:

• we think that you are a threat to public safety
• a warrant has been issued for your arrest
• we need people to be know about our investigation so that we can identify witnesses or victims
• you have already made our investigation public

Read our enforcement report to find out how many people we are investigating.

Enforcement operations

We conduct enforcement operations with the police, local authorities and other government agencies. We may lead the operations or we may assist in operations that are led by others.

Enforcement operations happen for one of 3 reasons:

1. Because of something we have been told (‘intelligence-led’).
2. So that we can gather information to direct our resources.
3. So that we can test assumptions we have made when deciding on our enforcement strategy.

Read our enforcement report for details of our recent enforcement operations.

Our powers of entry and inspection

SIA investigators are legally allowed to enter, at reasonable times, any premises you own or occupy.

You are legally required provide any documents or other information our investigators may ask for in connection with their investigations.

The authority to enter your places of work or to demand information from you can be delegated to individuals who do not work directly for the SIA.

Find out more

You can find out more about this in our booklet Enforcement: what to expect from the SIA (PDF, 136 KB, 20 pages).

Published 13 October 2020
Last updated 10 November 2020 + show all updates

1. 10 November 2020

   Amended the 'Criminal investigations' and 'Enforcement operations' sections so that they include links to the enforcement report

2. 10 November 2020

   Added the 'Criminal investigations' section. Amended the 'Prosecutions' section to include links to our list of active prosecution cases and our list of completed prosecutions.

3. 13 October 2020

   Removed reference to the offence of 'providing private security services when not approved to do so', which relates to a section of the PSIA that has not been activated. Corrected information relating to our powers of entry.

4. 13 October 2020

   First published.