Cleared / How it works
How Cleared decides who is cleared.
Three requirements per adult. One verdict per person. The order of the checks was arrived at by failure, which is why it is written down.
Step one
Your policy becomes rules.
Every organization differs on the details, so the details are settings, not code. During setup we translate your screening policy into the rules Cleared runs.
| Setting | Example from a real policy |
|---|---|
| Validity window | Three years from issue, for all three requirements |
| Accepted vendors | Police services plus named commercial check vendors |
| Course variants | Any version of the safeguarding course counts |
| Exemptions | Coaches under 18 are exempt from the police check |
| Credential cards | A valid national coaching card satisfies every requirement at once |
| Late renewals | Accepted for the current season with a hard renewal date set |
Step two
Every document gets a named verdict.
Not a confidence score. A person has to act on the answer, so the answer has a name.
- ValidMeets the policy, inside the window, name matches. Done.
- Receipt, not a resultThe payment confirmation or the "application submitted" page. The most common upload nobody plans for.
- Wrong documentA driver's licence, a passport, or a different course with a similar name.
- ExpiredOutside the validity window your policy sets.
- Name mismatchSent to a person, because short forms and legal name changes are real.
- Date unclearNo date, or a date within thirty days of the cutoff. Sent to a person.
- UnreadableNo text could be extracted. Different from readable but wrong, and the notice says so.
The decision order
Ten checks, in this order.
Order matters. A disclosure is caught before anything else touches the file.
- A disclosure is present: routed to your named screening officer alone.
- No extractable text: unreadable.
- An identity document: wrong document.
- An application, receipt or referral letter: receipt, not a result.
- A valid credential card: accepted, and it clears every requirement.
- Wrong document family, or confidence below the floor: a person reviews it.
- Name does not match the registered name: a person reviews it.
- No date, or a date near the cutoff: a person reviews it.
- Outside the validity window: expired.
- Otherwise: valid.
Step three
Roll up per person, not per document.
A police check belongs to a human, not to a team. Someone coaching in two zones has two registrations, and in the first sweep those rows disagreed with each other in twelve cases. Counted row by row, six people looked non-compliant who were not.
Cleared keeps every raw row and computes one verdict from the best evidence across them. Every adult lands in exactly one of three states, and none of them is a checkbox.
| State | Means |
|---|---|
| Verified | An accepted document or an approved review. The only way in. |
| Unverified | Chased by the ladder. A president can take someone off their chase list, and they are still unverified. |
| Out of scope | Suspended, exempt or not coaching this season, always with a reason row, a name and a timestamp. |
Step four
Fail open on the upload. Fail closed at the door.
When the classifier errors, times out or is unsure, the upload is accepted, stored, and marked under review. The volunteer is told it arrived. Nobody is rejected by a machine that was not sure.
At the door it runs the other way. The credential scan asks one question, and an adult who is not verified does not get a green screen. That is the whole product. Everything upstream is how the door learns the answer.
Find out who is on your floor this Saturday.
Thirty minutes, your screening policy, and an honest answer about whether Cleared fits your organization.