58 annual report 2011 convictions and other criminal law decisions are recorded. However, not all information is necessarily included in a criminal record certificate. It depends on the type of certificate. There are three different types of criminal record certificates: criminal record certificates for public use, private criminal record certificates and ‘child certificates’. In brief, a criminal record certificate for public use includes more types of information and may also include older information than a private criminal record certificate. A ‘child certificate’ contains information about any sexual offences against children aged under 15 years. A citizen may request a private criminal record certificate from the police. The other two types of criminal ­record certificate are not issued to individual citizens, only to authorities etc., and only in certain types of cases. Incidentally, an authority cannot obtain a private criminal record certificate or a child certificate without the consent of the person covered by the certificate. As a general rule, this also applies to criminal record certificates for public use. In the case of private criminal record certificates, employers will often ask applicants to obtain the certificate themselves. When is it allowed to demand a criminal record certificate? Information about criminal matters is confidential. An authority is therefore only allowed to request a criminal record certificate if it is for a legitimate purpose and necessary. In other words, an authority may not request a criminal record certificate unless it has a legitimate use for the information in the certificate and unless it is necessary in order for the authority to carry out one of its tasks. However, even if there are good reasons why an authority wants to request a criminal record certificate, there may also be good arguments against it, especially consideration for the person covered by the certificate. Before an authority requests a criminal record certificate, it must therefore consider pros and cons, but for some types of jobs, criminal record certificates are probably requested more or less as a matter of routine. In addition, there are certain jobs for which a child certificate must always be obtained before a person is appointed. This applies to positions where the employee will be in direct contact with children aged under 15 years. These rules are laid down in the Act on Child Certificates, and various orders list the positions covered by the rules. An authority may also request a child certificate for applicants for jobs other than those covered by the provisions of the Act on Child Certificates if the authority has a legitimate reason for doing so and if it