Apostille Korea offers a solution for criminal record certificates issued abroad Certificates such as the FBI Check in the United States and the RCMP record in Canada require fingerprinting and institutional certification carried out locally.

Apostille Korea said it provides a solution for obtaining criminal record certificates issued in foreign countries. Each document is issued only in the country concerned, and because timelines, requirements and rules differ from country to country, applicants find them hard to handle alone.

The chain encountered while preparing to emigrate

A 26-year-old woman studying abroad decided to emigrate to the United States together with the partner she had met there. Asked to submit a criminal record certificate as part of the immigration process, she had to prepare the document both in Korea and in the country where she was staying. The Korean criminal investigation record report was straightforward to obtain, but the certificate that had to be issued locally was the problem, because she had to handle everything herself, from fingerprinting at the local police station to approval by the relevant administrative office and authentication by the foreign ministry and the embassy. Staying abroad to work or marry was once unusual, but around 7.4 million people, about 15 percent of the total population, now live abroad as overseas Koreans. As emigration, international marriage and employment at foreign companies increase, requests for criminal record documents from each country are rising as well.

Requirements that differ by country

Overseas criminal record certificates, also referred to as background checks, most commonly include the FBI Check in the United States, the RCMP record in Canada, the NBI Clearance, the COC and the Chinese criminal record certificate. These certificates are requested when someone who has lived in a country for a period on a residence visa applies for a visa, permanent residence, emigration, employment or study in another country. Because each document is issued only in the country that produces it, applicants first run into the different timelines, requirements and rules of each jurisdiction. Obtaining a certificate abroad requires completing fingerprint forms and an application, a step that also needs certification by the relevant national authority. Some documents must further pass notarisation, apostille certification and consular legalisation, so handling the process personally inevitably involves trial and error. If a required document is missing or does not match the stated purpose the application is rejected, and since submitted papers cannot be recovered everything must be prepared again; these documents also rank among the most sensitive personal data in every country.

Frequently asked questions

Source: 그린데일리 · 2017-05-18