Frequently Asked Questions

Depending on regulations in your country you can use the certificate for employment or for any other purpose allowed by the law. This could mean running a criminal background check on:
– Job candidate
– Employee
– Vendor
– Nanny
– Tenant …
or more.
If you are a job applicant show your employer that you are proactive by taking out your own ECRIS report.
Find out more.

Criminal records checks can be obtained in a variety of manners:
-Directly from a criminal records bureau of a given country.
-Through the embassy or a consulate of a given country.
-Through the European Criminal Information System, i.e. indirectly, through
a criminal records bureau of a preferred EU member state other than the destined
country. This is how we conduct our CRCs. It’s the fastest solution!

The former are obtained from the state – governed institutions in accordance to the process set forth in relevant legislation of a given country. This is how we do it.

Examples of unofficial access to criminal records may include:
-using services of a company that does not require subject’s written consent
-using a 3rd party provider sourcing information from private databases
-using providers who use personal affiliations in the state offices and
accesses records illegally
-using private investigators, who access criminal records without subject’s
awareness or consent

Examples of official access to criminal records
-Applying directly to the inspectorate in a given country, with subject’s
written consent
-Applying through a service provider who applies to official authorities on
your behalf, just like ECRIS does.

-No written consent of the subject is required (government organization will
always look for one)
-Only basic subject’s personal details are required (as opposed to the official
process where details information is gathered to avoid false positives)
-The report shows very basic information
– The report comes as an internal document of your service provider
-No hard copy original certificate is available.

We are commonly asked by employers from different countries to conduct criminal records checks on their job applicants and employees. However, increasingly we are asked for assistance by private individuals, who wish to carry out a criminal background check on a prospect tenant, nanny or person taking care of an elderly member of the family.

ECRIS is the name of our brand. We named it after the pan-European program that facilitates exchange of information on criminal records among the courts of European Union member states. It is called European Criminal Records Information System and it is a decentralised network of criminal records bureaus of all EU member states.

We are chosen for several reasons:
Primarily, due to our narrow specialisation in CRCs we are picked for our expertise in this field.
Such focus lets us build a user friendly service. Our clients value the simplicity of the application process and the clarity of the reports.
We only do criminal records checks, we’re specialists and it’s all we do. Clients who seek nothing but a CRC trust us more than providers who dilute their focus with numerous services.
ECRIS is chosen by the companies required by their internal policies to conduct legitimate criminal records checks as part of the employee background screening, with focus to consideration of legal compliance.
Finally ECRIS is a choice of clients with previous experience and knowledge in the field of CRCs, who are aware of the consequences of ordering these checks from uncertain sources.

You should definitely use ECRIS if:

Criminal records check is all you are looking for.
You are having difficulties obtaining CRC in your country.
Your provider of employee screening services cannot provide the CRCs from the preferred country.
You want to obtain a CRC in another EU country.
You obtain CRCs on citizens of other EU member states regularly.
Your priority is the authenticity of information guaranteed by the official source it comes from.
Compliance is of the essence.
You value comprehensible and simple application process.

This will depend on the law in your country and the nature of your business. In most cases the ECRIS report will enable to you make a hiring decision based on the integrity and lack of criminal history of your applicant. In every case you should check your local laws before you use this tool of candidate evaluation. Occasionally you may need to obtain an additional consent from the subject, letting you legally use the information from the ECRIS report.

Information is obtained though the Polish National Criminal Register, however, in every case the ultimate source of information is a central register of a country the information on criminal records is sought from.

Section 184 of the Data Protection Act 2018 (DPA), ‘Prohibition of requirement to produce relevant records’ criminalises requesting a data subject, in connection with employment or provision of services to the requesting party, to provide certain categories of information, including a ‘Relevant record relating to a conviction or caution’.

At the same time Schedule 18 of the DPA describes the above record, as obtained in the exercise of the data subject’s access right from one of the enumerated UK public bodies: (a) the chief constable of a police force maintained under section 2 of the Police Act 1996; (b)the Commissioner of Police of the Metropolis; (c)the Commissioner of Police for the City of London; (d)the Chief Constable of the Police Service of Northern Ireland; (e)the chief constable of the Police Service of Scotland; (f)the Director General of the National Crime Agency; (g)the Secretary of State.

In ECRIS we do not make requests under data subject right to access (unless explicitly stated otherwise), nor do we obtain information meeting the criteria of the said ‘relevant record’, as we do not approach any of the mentioned public bodies. As an effect, the Section 184 of the DPA does not apply to this service.

As a result the main legal obstacle to processing information on conviction is not applicable to our service. Nevertheless, you should still take into account any other possible legal circumstances affecting your ability to process such information.

Section 4 of the Irish Data Protection Act 2018 (DPA) criminalises forced subject access requests made under Article 15 of the GDPR or under section 91 of the DPA in relation to recruitment, continuation of employment or provision of services. As a result, employers’ ability to legally obtain information on their job applicants’, inter alia, criminal records, has been narrowed to the job positions requiring compulsory disclosure of relevant criminal convictions.

In ECRIS we do not make requests under the quoted laws, therefore utilisation of the data obtained through us is not restricted by the section 4 of the DPA.

The only exception is the service ‘Irish Criminal Records Check (Subject Access Request Disclosure)’, which is obtained under the data subject right to access. According to the above legislation, you are fine to process this information if the applicant supplied such a report voluntarily, however you should not ask any person to order or provide such a report in connection to employment.