National Criminal Register ( pl, Krajowy Rejestr Karny) is an official database of criminal convictions and other

law enforcement Law enforcement is the activity of some members of government who act in an organized manner to enforce the law by discovering, deterring, rehabilitating, or punishing people who violate the rules Rule or ruling may refer to: Education ...

data maintained by the Polish

Ministry of Justice A Ministry of Justice is a common type of government department that serves as a justice ministry. Lists of current ministries of justice Named "Ministry" * Ministry of Justice (Abkhazia) * Ministry of Justice (Afghanistan) * Ministry of Just ...

History and legal basis

The National Criminal Register was established on 22 June 2001 by the Act of 24 May 2000 on National Criminal Register and replaced the previously existing Central Register of Convicts ( pl, Centralny Rejestr Skazanych) and Central Register of Juvenile Offenders ( pl, Centralny Rejestr Nieletnich). In early 2022, the Ministry of Justice announced a bill to reform the National Criminal Register by allowing some official notices and documents to be shared between authorities by digital means, and hence improving its

reliability Reliability, reliable, or unreliable may refer to: Science, technology, and mathematics Computing * Data reliability (disambiguation), a property of some disk arrays in computer storage * High availability * Reliability (computer networking), a ...

and currentness. Moreover, the information in the Register is to be linked to the PESEL Register. The proposed changes are aimed at creating a new computer system labelled "KRK 2.0".

Data processed and stored

The following information is stored in the National Criminal Register: * data about convictions for

criminal offence In ordinary language, a crime is an unlawful act punishable by a state or other authority. The term ''crime'' does not, in modern criminal law, have any simple and universally accepted definition,Farmer, Lindsay: "Crime, definitions of", in Ca ...

s and tax offences, * data about persons who received a

conditional discharge A discharge is a type of sentence imposed by a court whereby no punishment is imposed. An absolute discharge is an unconditional discharge whereby the court finds that a crime has technically been committed but that any punishment of the defend ...

for a criminal offence or a tax offence, * data about persons who received a conditional discharge for a criminal offence or a tax offence under

amnesty Amnesty (from the Ancient Greek ἀμνηστία, ''amnestia'', "forgetfulness, passing over") is defined as "A pardon extended by the government to a group or class of people, usually for a political offense; the act of a sovereign power offici ...

schemes, * data about Polish citizens convicted by foreign courts, * data about persons who are subject to court-imposed preventive measures (bail) in cases of criminal or tax offences, * data about

juvenile offender A young offender is a young person who has been convicted or cautioned for a criminal offense. Criminal justice systems often deal with young offenders differently from adult offenders, but different countries apply the term "young offender" ...

s who were subject to court-imposed educational, corrective or educational-medical measures or were punished under the article 13 or the article 19 of the Act of 26 October 1982 on the procedure for juvenile offenders, * data about persons who were convicted for a petty (minor) offence and were given a punishment of imprisonment for that offence, * data about persons who are wanted on an outstanding arrest warrant, * data about persons who are detained pending

trial In law, a trial is a coming together of parties to a dispute, to present information (in the form of evidence) in a tribunal, a formal setting with the authority to adjudicate claims or disputes. One form of tribunal is a court. The tribunal ...

, * data about juvenile offenders detained in a juvenile shelter. Data regarding fixed penalty notices ( pl, mandat karny) issued and convictions for petty (minor) offences, like traffic violations, are not stored in the Register, unless a

custodial sentence A custodial sentence is a judicial sentence, imposing a punishment consisting of mandatory custody of the convict, either in prison or in some other closed therapeutic or educational institution, such as a reformatory, (maximum security) psychia ...

was imposed.

Accessing data

The Register is not public. Access to data is limited to authorities (

Policja Policja () is the generic name for the national police force of the Republic of Poland. The Polish police force was known as ''policja'' throughout the Second Polish Republic (1918–1939), and in the modern Republic of Poland since 1990. Its cur ...

, prosecutor offices ( pl, prokuratura), courts, Foreign Intelligence Agency, Internal Security Agency, Border Guard,

Central Anticorruption Bureau The Central Anticorruption Bureau (CBA, pl, Centralne Biuro Antykorupcyjne) is a division of the Polish government, reporting to the Prime Minister of Poland, responsible for addressing corruption in Poland. Located in Warsaw, the CBA has been f ...

, State Protection Service, Military Counterintelligence Service,

Military Intelligence Service The Military Intelligence Service ( ja, アメリカ陸軍情報部, ''America Rikugun Jōhōbu'') was a World War II U.S. military unit consisting of two branches, the Japanese American unit (described here) and the German-Austrian unit based ...

), data subjects, and, in limited cases, data subjects' employers (when a statue requires an employee to have no criminal record). As of 2019, data in the Register are accessed as often as 3 million times a year, with 80 per cent of all access requests coming from relevant state authorities.

Removal of data

Data about convictions are automatically removed when they are considered "spent" under the Polish criminal law. Information about conditional discharges is removed if no further offence is committed within a stated probation period, or when the criminal proceedings resume following breach of the conditions of the discharge. Data about court-imposed preventive measures are removed once they expire. Information is also removed on the event of data subject's death.

References

{{reflist, 30em Databases in Poland Criminal records databases Law enforcement databases