National Firearms Register

We sent newsletters to everyone who holds a valid Tasmanian Firearms licence. We are encouraging licence holders to ensure their personal details are up to date with Firearms Services. If you would like to receive regular project updates electronically, and haven’t provided Firearms Services with an email address yet, you can either sign up online via the link above, call Firearms Services on 03 6173 2720 to update your details or contact the NFR project team directly via email – NFR.enquiries@dpfem.tas.gov.au

Tasmania Police will continue to maintain the registry as currently happens, and the Tasmania Police Registry will integrate with the NFR.

To meet the NFR project system requirements, Tasmania Police are updating our current software system which manages the registry database. We might need to contact you to validate some information, but the NFR will have little impact to you.

Part of the Tasmania Police NFR project is to make licence management tasks more efficient for us and you. This will mean that all current paper-based forms will be available online through a secure licence holders’ portal.

The portal will enable you to:

submit your participation records (for Category H Licence holders)

manage your own firearms and details online

submit licence applications and renewals

update your address and the storage address of your firearms

upload proof for your genuine reason

While we are hoping that most, if not all, licence holders take up the option to save time and interact online. We are mindful not everyone has access to the internet, and not everyone is comfortable completing forms and tasks online, so there will be the ability to still do things the current way – on paper and in person.

While we envisage the system will be intuitive, we want to ensure that it is as easy to navigate as possible and will have support available if you choose to use the portal and will provide easy to understand ‘how to’ guides.

Dealers will be required to complete sales related updates and notify of firearms in their possession online, to ensure that information contained within the registry is up to date in near real time.

The Australian Criminal Intelligence Commission (ACIC) are responsible for the NFR. The ACIC are experienced with managing highly sensitive policing systems and information. The NFR is for law enforcement and select government agencies, it will not be accessible by the general public.

The Tasmania Police online portal will adhere to Tasmanian Government security requirements known as the PSPF and national cyber security ISM standards.

No. Each jurisdiction remains responsible for all aspects of firearm licensing, possession, storage, and usage. Tasmania will continue to ensure that legislative changes are only implemented after consultation with licence holders and other key stakeholders.  Legislative changes as part of NFR will improve consistency around the country but will not be making big changes to licensing rules including no limitations on the number of firearms that can be owned or changes to current storage requirements.

We are taking a different approach to data validation than the Northern Territory. There are 150,000 firearms registered in Tasmania, and Tasmania Police will need to validate details for some of these. This is because over the years the amount of data captured in a firearms registration has changed. Many firearms have remained with the same owner since initial registration and haven’t been validated by a dealer in the past 20 years. Not only has data capturing improved over time, but also humans aren’t perfect, and errors can occur. To ensure national data standards are achieved we may reach out to you to clarify details of one or more of your firearms.

When Tasmania Police register a firearm and issue a registration certificate (a ‘blue’), a national catalogue of templates for firearms called NFID (National Firearms Identification Database) is referenced. From this catalogue, we assign a template to the firearm. The template captures and identifies attributes of the firearm and is a nationally agreed standard to help Australian police, regardless of jurisdiction, identify and record firearms in a consistent way. It is the assigning of a template that will make information consistent around the country. Tasmania Police will contact licence holders about firearm records with missing attributes. This will be via a phone call in the first instance.

Once all Tasmanian registered firearms have been assigned the right template and the data in our registry meets the NDS, we will assess if there has been a significant change in the firearm registration details which would warrant a new blue being issued. If required, new blues (registration certificates) will be posted to you.

If you notice a discrepancy within your registration paperwork, please contact the Firearms Services team to correct it.

The changes in legislation at both a federal and state level relate to data standards, consistent business practices, and sharing of information between jurisdictions. The legislative changes are not to make things harder for firearms licence holders, but to provide a consistent landscape for all jurisdictions. A part of the NFR is key definitions, this provides the State a chance to modernise some definitions and make them consistent with other jurisdictions.

We will provide information in our project updates when legislative changes are announced and feedback is open to the public.

You can email us with any questions, and a member of the project team will get back to you.

The Tasmania Police NFR project team are happy to meet with any community group which has an interest in the NFR project. We welcome invitations to attend club shoots, meetings and firearms related events over the coming 3 years to answer questions and share information with members of the community.

If you would like us to attend an event or meeting, or if you would like to attend a face-to-face session with us, please send us an email NFR.enquiries@dpfem.tas.gov.au

Each state and territory manage its own firearms registry, and the NFR won’t change this. While the registries all follow the National Firearms Agreement (NFA), the rules and systems are not the same across the nation. Because of this, the steps to meet the objectives of the NFR project are different for each jurisdiction.

The NFR is a multi-arm project. It incorporates technology changes, data validation, and legislative amendments. All these project elements are complex and will take time to get right.

There will be opportunities for firearm licence holders to participate in working groups and to help guide some of our decisions around technology and how it is used. If you would like to be involved, please contact the project team via email NFR.enquiries@dpfem.tas.gov.au  to register your interest, and we will be in touch.