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Comment by asfdsfggtfd | Hacker News Reader

You have a lot more faith in the justice system than others.

NB that being arrested once can hinder someone from getting Visas or jobs in the future and can result in social exclusion.

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I’m talking about the first world, where arrests aren’t public data.

I have no personal experience of this, but try googling for "ESTA arrest" (without the quotes).

When traveling to e.g. the USA arrests have to be declared on the online visa waiver. Similar for other countries. I have no idea what happens if you have any arrests but I assume it is not totally convenient. Even if your record might be sealed/not public in your countries does not mean you can ignore this section of the form.

>The general rule is that arrest records are public records. However, each state can determine whether they wish for such records to be readily available to the public. [1]

>Arrest records are generally open to the public unless they concern an active or ongoing investigation.[2]

>Since the arrest record is public, anyone can access the information by going to the jurisdiction’s government website. Also, anyone can obtain the arrest record by going to the county clerk’s office in person.[3]

[1]https://www.hg.org/article.asp?id=36914

[2]https://www.rcfp.org/private-eyes/arrest-records

[3]https://www.legalmatch.com/law-library/article/what-is-a-pub...

In the US - a first world country, arrests are often public data, Although it varies from state to state:

https://sunlightfoundation.com/2016/02/01/the-perils-of-pers...

Arrest data is public and companies often buy it so they can build background reports :)

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