Background Checks for School and Daycare Staff (日本版DBS)

What Changes on December 25

The law was passed in June 2024 and takes effect on December 25, 2026.

It puts the duty on the places that look after and teach children, not on parents. Those places have to do three things:

• Prevent abuse day to day, with rules for staff, training, and ways for children to speak up.
• Respond when abuse is suspected, by protecting the child and looking into what happened.
• Check staff for past sex-offense convictions, and keep anyone with one out of work with children.

The record check is the part that makes the news, and it is the part the "DBS" nickname refers to. But it is one of three.

Two Kinds of Places: Required and Voluntary

The law splits the places children go into two groups. For some, everything above is required. For others it is voluntary: they can apply to the Children and Families Agency (こども家庭庁) to be certified, and only once certified do the same duties apply to them.

Two points about the table. The required side covers public and private places alike, so a private kindergarten is covered just as a city-run one is. And the voluntary side really is optional: a tutoring school that does not apply has broken no rule. Certification takes an online application and is expected to take one to two months, so the list of certified places is likely to build up gradually after December 25.

If you are using any of these, our guides to after-school care, kodomo-en and hourly daycare without a job cover how each one works.

What Covered Places Have to Do

Most of what changes happens without parents seeing it. These are the measures the agency lists, in plain terms.

Every day:

• Watching how children are doing, physically and emotionally
• Interviews or questionnaires with children, so early signs are picked up
• A place children can go to talk, and making sure they know about it
• Training for staff, and written rules on how staff behave with children
• Explaining those rules to children and parents

That last point is the one you are most likely to notice: your child's school or nursery may send a letter or hold a briefing explaining its rules.

When abuse is suspected: the place must protect and support the child, and investigate. The agency's guidance on how to handle this is detailed, and it applies whether or not anyone has a criminal record.

How the Record Check Works

Who is checked

Not everyone who works at a school or nursery. The law covers staff whose work meets three tests: they have authority over children, their contact with children is ongoing, and it can happen out of other adults' sight (支配性・継続性・閉鎖性).

• Always checked: teachers, school counselors and school club coaches; nursery heads and childcare workers; at certified places, people such as tutoring-school instructors and after-school care staff.
• Decided case by case: office staff, school bus drivers, security guards, depending on how much unsupervised contact they actually have.

Employment type does not matter. Part-time staff, agency staff and volunteers are included when their work meets the three tests.

What is checked

The check looks for convictions for specified sex offenses (特定性犯罪). This includes offenses against adults, not only against children: non-consensual indecency, groping, secret filming, child prostitution and child pornography are among them.

Convictions only count for a set time:

• a prison sentence: for 20 years after it ends
• a suspended sentence: for 10 years after the sentence is final
• a fine: for 10 years after it is paid

The employer starts the check through a national online system, the worker submits their own documents, and the agency checks them against Ministry of Justice records before reporting back to the employer. Parents are not part of this process and do not see the results.

When

So the check does not happen everywhere at once. Staff already working at your child's school on December 25 may not be checked until well into 2027 or later, which is how the law was designed to roll out.

What happens if a conviction turns up

The place must treat it as a risk and keep that person out of work with children, for example by moving them to another role. The same duty applies when an investigation or other information shows a risk, even without a conviction.

How to Tell Whether a Place Is Covered

For required places, you do not need to check. If your child attends a school, a licensed nursery or a kodomo-en, it is covered by law.

For voluntary places, there are two signs:

• The agency's list. Certified providers are published on the Children and Families Agency website, so you can look up whether a tutoring school or club has been certified.
• The owl mark. The law comes with a mascot, an orange owl called こまもろう (Komamorō), and two marks built around it. Certified places can show the round certified mark (認定), and places required by law can show the square "required by law" mark (法定). You may see them on websites, pamphlets, uniforms and front entrances. Displaying either mark without permission is against the law.

No mark does not mean unsafe. Certification is voluntary and only starting, and a well-run club may simply not have applied yet. It is reasonable to ask, though. Two questions cover it: whether they are certified, and if not, what rules their staff follow and who your child can talk to if something feels wrong.

Babysitters

This depends on how the babysitter works.

• A babysitter working alone, on their own account, is not covered. The agency says so directly.
• A babysitter booked through a matching service can be. If the service is registered as an unlicensed childcare provider and contracts its sitters, it can apply for certification, and its sitters are then checked as its staff.

If you use a matching service, it is worth asking whether it has applied for certification, using the same question as above.

What the Law Does Not Cover

It helps to be clear about the edges, so the new system is not mistaken for a guarantee.

• Places that are not certified. The voluntary side only applies once a provider applies and is approved.
• Some lessons cannot be certified at all. To count as an education business, lessons must be face to face, at a place the provider arranges rather than the child's home, run for six months or more, and taught by at least three instructors. A private tutor who teaches in your home, or a class run by one or two people, falls outside.
• Individual babysitters, as above.
• Old convictions past the time limits above.
• Abuse by someone with no conviction on record. The check can only find past convictions.

The agency itself points out that abuse by adults close to a child is hard to notice. That is why the day-to-day measures, and what happens at home, matter as much as the check.

What You Can Do at Home

Alongside the law, the agency has published guidance for parents. In short:

Things to talk about with your child, early and often:

• The parts of the body a swimsuit covers are private. They are not shown to anyone or touched by anyone, and that goes for your child and for other people alike.
• If someone tries to touch you in a way you don't like, you can say "no" or "stop."
• If you couldn't say it, it is still not your fault.
• If something bad happens, tell an adult straight away.

Changes the agency suggests asking about, with a simple "What's wrong?": trouble sleeping or bad dreams, trouble concentrating, a loss of confidence, or a change in how close they let people come, either avoiding contact or getting unusually close.

If your child tells you something has happened, the guidance is to thank them for telling you, tell them it is not their fault, and listen without doubting or blaming. Keep questions to a minimum and let them say what they want to say: questioning in detail can affect what a child remembers. Then contact one of the services below as soon as you can.

Japanese Vocabulary

Terms you will see in school letters and on provider websites:

The system starts on December 25, and much of it, from the list of certified providers to the checks on current staff, will take shape over the following months and years. We will update this guide as it does.