The SHARE Act of 2025 adds a new section to Subtitle E of Title VI of the Intelligence Reform and Terrorism Prevention Act of 2004 to authorize the FBI to furnish criminal history record information (CHRI) to State licensing authorities — via a State law enforcement agency or State identification bureau — when an interstate compact requires a criminal-history background check for licensure or multistate privileges.
The bill narrowly limits how CHRI may be used and shared: licensing authorities may use the information only to act on the license or privilege and may not share CHRI with the compact’s commission, other State entities, other licensing authorities, or the public. It does, however, expressly permit a licensing authority to notify a compact commission that a background check was completed and to provide a binary satisfactory/unsatisfactory outcome.
At a Glance
What It Does
The bill directs the FBI to provide criminal history record information to State licensing authorities through agreements with a State law enforcement agency or State identification bureau when an interstate compact requires such a check. It defines key terms (e.g., Commission, license, privilege, CHRI) and constrains downstream sharing of CHRI while allowing reporting of completion and a binary determination.
Who It Affects
State licensing boards and agencies that administer occupational or professional licenses under interstate compacts; interstate compact commissions that coordinate multistate privileges; State law enforcement and State identification bureaus that broker access to FBI CHRI; and individuals applying for licenses or compact privileges.
Why It Matters
The bill creates a federal pathway for licensing authorities to obtain FBI CHRI specifically for compact-driven licensure decisions, potentially smoothing reciprocity and multistate practice. At the same time, it forecloses centralized sharing of detailed criminal records, which reshapes how compacts can design centralized vetting or registries.
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What This Bill Actually Does
The SHARE Act inserts a single new statutory section into the Intelligence Reform and Terrorism Prevention Act framework that is purpose-built for interstate licensing compacts. It begins by defining the actors and the data: a ‘Commission’ means the compact’s joint governmental entity; ‘criminal history record information’ covers arrests, charges, and dispositions but excludes identification data like fingerprint files unless those files themselves show criminal-justice involvement; and it makes clear that both traditional state licenses and multistate ‘privileges’ granted under compacts are covered.
Operationally, the bill requires the FBI to furnish CHRI to a State licensing authority when a compact obligates a background check. That transfer must occur through an agreement with the State law enforcement agency or the State identification bureau — the bill does not authorize direct, ad hoc access by licensing boards to FBI systems without that state-level conduit.Once a licensing authority receives CHRI, the bill strictly confines how the data may be used: only to act on the applicant’s license or compact privilege.
The statute bars sharing any part of the CHRI with the compact’s Commission, other State entities or licensing authorities, or the public. Separately, it clarifies one permitted form of communication with a compact: a licensing authority may inform the Commission that it completed the background check and may report a binary outcome (satisfactory or not).
According to the text, providing that completion-and-binary signal does not constitute prohibited sharing of CHRI.Taken together, these mechanics create a hybrid model: federal CHRI can flow to state licensing decisionmakers to support interstate portability of credentials, but the detailed records are siloed at the licensing authority level rather than centralized at the compact level. The bill does not set penalties, retention rules, data-security standards, or a formal process for disputes or appeals, leaving those implementation details to state law, existing compact rules, or subsequent regulation.
The Five Things You Need to Know
The bill adds Section 6404 to Subtitle E of Title VI of the Intelligence Reform and Terrorism Prevention Act of 2004 to govern CHRI sharing for compact licensure checks.
The FBI must furnish or otherwise make available CHRI to a State licensing authority only through an agreement with a State law enforcement agency or State identification bureau.
CHRI is defined to include arrests, charges, dispositions (including acquittal and sentencing) but excludes identification information like fingerprints unless that identification shows criminal-justice involvement.
State licensing authorities may use CHRI solely to act on a license or privilege and are prohibited from sharing CHRI with the compact’s Commission, other State entities, other licensing authorities, or the public.
A licensing authority is expressly permitted to notify a compact Commission that a criminal-history check was completed and to provide a binary satisfactory/unsatisfactory determination; that notification is not treated as sharing CHRI.
Section-by-Section Breakdown
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Names the Act
This short provision establishes the bill’s formal citation: the States Handling Access to Reciprocity for Employment Act of 2025, or the SHARE Act of 2025. Practically, the title signals the bill’s focus on interstate licensure reciprocity and sets the expectation that later text will tie federal CHRI access to compact-driven reciprocity mechanisms.
Defines key actors and the data
Subsection (a) supplies the working glossary the rest of the section uses: it defines ‘Commission’ to cover compact joint entities, clarifies what counts as a ‘license’ or ‘privilege,’ and gives a focused definition of ‘criminal history record information’ (arrests, charges, dispositions). Importantly, it excludes purely identification data (for example, fingerprints) unless those records themselves indicate involvement with the criminal-justice system. For implementers, these definitions delimit when the new sharing authority triggers and what material actually moves.
Authorizes FBI to provide CHRI through State conduits
Subsection (b) obligates the FBI Director to furnish CHRI to a State licensing authority where an interstate compact requires a criminal-history check, but only via an agreement with a State law enforcement agency or State identification bureau. Mechanically, this channels federal records through existing state brokers rather than permitting direct federal-to-board feeds; licensing authorities will typically need a formal state-side agreement to receive CHRI, and those agreements will drive operational details such as format, delivery method, and auditing.
Limits use and forbids downstream sharing of CHRI
Subsection (c)(1) confines the use of CHRI to the single purpose of deciding on a license or compact privilege. It flatly prohibits a licensing authority from sharing CHRI — or parts of it — with the compact’s Commission, other State entities or licensing authorities, or the public. That prohibition prevents centralized compact repositories from holding full criminal histories and forces compacts to rely on per-state decisions or minimal status signaling instead of centralized vetting.
Permits notifying Commission of completion and a binary result
Subsection (c)(2) creates a narrow exception: a licensing authority may tell the compact’s Commission that it completed the background check and may indicate whether the result was satisfactory or not. The statute treats that binary communication as not constituting prohibited sharing of CHRI. Practically, this allows compacts to coordinate on whether applicants meet a threshold for portability without receiving the underlying details that produced the decision.
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Who Benefits
- State licensing authorities: They gain an explicit federal authorization to obtain FBI CHRI (via state conduits) for compact-required background checks, which can improve access to comprehensive criminal-history data when deciding on licensure or privileges.
- Interstate compact member states that prefer decentralized control: States that want to retain full control over adjudicating applicants benefit because the bill prevents commissions from centralizing CHRI and keeps detailed records at the state licensing authority.
- Public-safety-focused regulators: Licensing boards with a public-safety mandate may obtain a more complete national criminal-history record to inform determinations about who may practice in a State, potentially reducing risk from applicants with out-of-state records.
Who Bears the Cost
- State licensing authorities: They face new operational responsibilities to obtain, store, and use CHRI under the bill’s limits and to implement agreements with State law enforcement or identification bureaus — creating compliance, security, and record-keeping costs.
- Interstate compact Commissions and compact administrators: Commissions lose the ability to centralize detailed CHRI for cross-state vetting, complicating efforts to operate centralized registries, shared vetting workflows, or unified monitoring systems.
- Applicants for multistate privileges: Applicants may experience additional procedural friction and privacy exposure as more agencies hold criminal-history details, and they may receive only a binary outcome with limited transparency into the factual basis for adverse determinations.
- State law enforcement agencies and State identification bureaus: These entities must negotiate and manage the agreements that serve as conduits for CHRI transfers, which can impose administrative and technical burdens.
Key Issues
The Core Tension
The bill balances two legitimate goals that push in opposite directions: improving interstate licensure reciprocity and public-safety vetting by enabling federal CHRI access for state decisionmakers, while simultaneously protecting individual privacy and state control by prohibiting the sharing of those detailed records with compact commissions or other states. The core dilemma is whether limiting data flows preserves privacy and state sovereignty at the cost of compact-level efficiency and centralized oversight — a trade-off with no technical or policy perfect solution.
The statute deliberately threads a narrow needle: it increases licensing authorities’ access to federal criminal records while forbidding downstream sharing that could create a centralized compact-level database. That choice creates operational frictions.
Compact administrators that envisioned centralized vetting or a single source of truth for member states cannot rely on receiving detailed CHRI; they are limited to a status flag. Implementers will need to design state-side agreements and technical channels for CHRI delivery, but the bill leaves data-retention rules, security standards, audit rights, and enforcement mechanisms unspecified.
Several ambiguities could matter in practice. The exclusion of ‘‘identification information, such as fingerprint records, if such information does not indicate the individual’s involvement with the criminal justice system’’ raises practical questions about what fingerprint or biometric data may be shared and when — and how to treat records that are ambiguous.
The text also does not spell out remedies or penalties for improper sharing or misuse, nor does it articulate how licensing authorities should handle disputes, notice to applicants, or retention and purge policies, leaving a patchwork of state law and compact rules to fill those gaps.
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