Justice minister seeks explanation after errors in child safety certificates

Denmark’s justice minister has ordered an explanation after errors in the Criminal Register raised doubts about whether some child safety certificates contained all relevant convictions.

Nicolai Wammen asked the national police to restore information that had been deleted and prepare a full account of the error’s scope, cause and consequences. He said people hiring staff to work with children must be able to trust that the certificates are accurate.

National Police Commissioner Lasse Boje briefed politicians in Christiansborg after police discovered that some cases had been deleted from the register by mistake. Police have temporarily halted the issuance of child safety certificates and weapons permits while they investigate.

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It is essential that people can rely on child safety certificates being accurate when they hire people who will work with children.

The error came to light in June. Boje said the initial indications pointed to a problem of very limited scope, but called it concerning that convictions had been missing. The police said preliminary checks found that the register currently contains an accurate record of decisions made from 2011 onward. Any decisions deleted too early would therefore date from before 2011.

Police also said their preliminary assessment found no child safety certificates missing a conviction because of the error among people aged 29 or younger. Private and public criminal records should not be affected, they added, because those certificates do not include information more than 10 years old.

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Everything indicates that this concerns errors of very limited scope. But it is worrying that information about convictions has been missing.