Police resume child certificate processing after registry error

Police have resumed processing requests for certificates used to check whether people working with children have previous convictions for child abuse, DR reports. Processing had been suspended since 2 September after an error in the Criminal Register.

The Danish National Police said the decision followed an assessment that the error’s consequences for the register were very limited. Processing applications for weapons permits has also resumed.

The error caused information that could have been relevant to child certificates and weapons permits to be deleted. The police said they had re-registered 43 decisions relevant to child certificates that had been deleted prematurely.

Some decisions from before 2011 could not be recreated. However, the police said the register could now be used to issue child certificates.

“We are very aware that suspending the processing of child certificates has created difficulties for many people. It is therefore good that we can now reopen,” National Police Commissioner Lasse Boje said.

The error created major problems for municipalities. In Aarhus, the employment of 400 people was put on hold.

A review of automatically issued child certificates from 2015 to 2026 identified one certificate from 2015 that should have included a decision that had been deleted too early. The police said it had not been possible to manually review certificates issued manually.

About 450,000 child certificates are issued each year, and around 3.7 million have been issued since 2015. Approximately 3.5 percent are issued manually, including when the person the certificate concerns does not have MitID, Denmark’s digital identification system.