I believe what you're referring to is called the FIP system. Firearms interest police is what that decodes to. That system has been in place since the Firearms Act came into force in the 1990s. Under that, if there is a police incident that matches certain criteria, usually crimes related to violence, then any names in the police investigation associated with that particular criminal investigation are flagged with what's called a FIP hit. Where a FIP hit has occurred on a person who also has a firearms licence, that goes to the chief firearms officers for review.
The checking process that you're referring to does not take place every day for every firearms owner. Rather it occurs only when a firearms owner is somehow connected to a serious police investigation and not necessarily as a criminal. There could be some other element through which the individual firearms owner is connected to a police investigation that is serious enough that it is flagged and goes to the chief firearms officer so there will be a review of the licence. That's what that's all about.