(a) The Protection of People with Special Needs Act (the act), enacted as chapter 501 of the Laws of 2012, seeks to prevent persons responsible for egregious or repeated acts of abuse or neglect of a vulnerable person from being engaged as employees, administrators, consultants, interns, volunteers or contractors, and from obtaining licenses, certificates or other approvals, for positions where they have the potential for regular and substantial contact with vulnerable persons or other individuals whom the act seeks to protect.

(b) To accomplish this goal, the act provides that all custodians who have been found by a preponderance of the evidence, after an opportunity for a fair hearing, to have engaged in an act of abuse or neglect of sufficient severity or with sufficient frequency, shall be placed on the register of substantiated category one cases of abuse or neglect, also known as the “staff exclusion list.”

(c) This regulation outlines the procedures for obtaining and using social security numbers to assist in verifying the identity of subjects of reports in the vulnerable persons central register (VPCR); individuals placed on the staff exclusion list and those individuals who must be screened against the staff exclusion list.