11.01.2023
HOW PEOPLE CAN GET AN ELECTRONIC CRIMINAL RECORD?
We know that government agencies that used to require us to provide a criminal record for various services or registrations now receive the information through the official route, rather than having us walk to Criminal Records desks for a paper original. And the information whether we have been convicted and for what, is needed in various cases - if we apply to the Ministry of the Interior, the State Agency for National Security, we want a permit for weapons or for securities trading.
However, there are still a number of cases where we have to get a criminal record certificate ourselves - for example, when we start working in a private company or get a license to practice a certain regulated profession.
In these cases, the state had provided the possibility since 2013 for Bulgarians to apply for and receive it electronically. However, for this purpose one had to have a qualified electronic signature of an individual with a personal identification number in the certificate, and until recently their prices were not at all low for their mass issuance, and in fact only a few thousand people owned them (company electronic signatures do not work in this case). Separately, the electronic ID could only be applied for by people born in the country who had never been convicted.
In all other cases, you had to visit the "Conviction" office in person at the district court of your place of residence, because only there were paper and electronic records of criminal records for Bulgarian citizens born in the territory under the jurisdiction of the respective district court.
However, the Centralized Automated Information System "Judicial Status" has been operating for several months, which enables almost every Bulgarian citizen to apply for a criminal record certificate electronically. What is needed?
In addition to the classic qualified electronic signature, the so-called cloud KEP (which is claimed through a mobile application from the phone and the use of which is free when signing in to the state's electronic authentication systems). In addition, citizens can be identified with an identification code of the National Social Security Institute or the National Revenue Agency. These are codes that more and more citizens have because they help them submit declarations, make inquiries and request services in these two institutions.
In terms of payment, it is enough to have a bank card, which almost all Bulgarians of working age have.
As for the restrictions by place of residence or legal status, the system now enables the applicant to request an electronic criminal record certificate, even if he was not born in Bulgaria, and even if he was convicted or fined under Art. 78a.
The information arrays of the Central Bureau "Sudimost" have been merged with all 113 bureaus in the country. Thus, data on the status of citizens is processed and stored in only one database, instead of in the local databases of the district courts of residence. For years, local criminal records bureau databases were manually updated based on court bulletins, making the process extremely unreliable, time-consuming and difficult to control.
In addition to the changes in the online service, the new information system makes it possible to issue paper criminal record certificates to all citizens, from every Criminal Record Office in the country, regardless of the person's place of birth or address registration. The paper original of the certificate has a QR code that leads to the electronic content of the document.
This is no small relief, because district court reports indicate that citizens still prefer to apply for criminal records over the counter, rather than online, which was probably also due to the limitations that the electronic service had until now.
