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Comment by miki123211 | Hacker News Reader

In Europe, court records aren't public in the same way as they are in the US.

They're not searchable, they're often not even digitized, and the media is generally not allowed to report the full names of those accused.

Where I live, it's literally impossible to run a background check on somebody. If a background check is required, the person of interest has to specifically request an official document from the government proving they haven't been convicted for any crimes, or listing the crimes they have been convicted for. This is pretty common when starting a new job, I have had to do this.

Now there's also a sex offenders registry, which authorized institutions can query directly, although they have to get consent first.

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>or listing the crimes they have been convicted for. This is pretty common when starting a new job

In the Netherlands it's not even that -- you can ask for a certificate of "good behavior" with a purpose and they just say yes or no. If the purpose is employment, the form asks which sector you will be employed in, because sex offenders can still work somewhere and so do people convicted of financial fraud. You just don't want them to work in specific places, i.e. near kids or banks respectively.

Data minimization is a thing.

> Where I live, it's literally impossible to run a background check on somebody.

I have a hard time imagine that law enforcement doesn't have access to it. At that point access is given by degree of difficulty and not "impossible". I could buy "illegal" tho.

Police maintains the database, so of course they can run a background check. But they don't offer it as a service and don't give away the information to anyone except the person it concerns.

> But they don't offer it as a service and don't give away the information to anyone except the person it concerns.

Here in the us I know how insubstantial this claim is. If you know enough law enforcement $10 can get you pictures of a full lookup. And this is with a fairly bare relationship.

Fair enough, if you think about it from this point of view -- yes, it's not impossible. To put your 10$ in a perspective, the last thing I heard about corrupt cops (literally last week in the news) was a bro who selling license plate readings for 500 euros through his relative (who was selling drugs). He was also smart about using somebody else's password to get them from the system, because of course requests are logged. This one got caught (obviously, this is how we know) and is getting some free accommodation paid for by my taxes. Obviously there are corrupt cops everywhere, but in Western Europe at least cops are not the underpaid power tripping assholes with guns. They also can't just get employed as a cop in a different village after being kicked out for some cop bullshit.

So maybe it's not impossible, but it's not something you would do as part of normal HR screening.

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