> I'm not sure if you're aware, but this is a very US thing. In Europe it's not even uncommon with laws against discriminating on these grounds as well.

As (almost) always when "Europe" comes up in the comments of this site to oppose it with the USA: *Europe is not a thing* (as in: it is not an homogenous thing at all, it covers many different countries with many different situations, laws and everything).

At least in France, quite many jobs require a criminal record to be presented, to check that you were not sentenced for a crime/offence deemed incompatible with the specific position.

It is less invasive, and less public than in the USA, but it pretty well exists and is perfectly legal.

> to check that you were not sentenced for a crime/offence deemed incompatible with the specific position.

But we're talking about a crime that is not incompatible with the specific position.

For security related jobs you need a clean criminal record n Greece/Cyprus but if you ask my opinion a criminal knows how criminals work and think so it would be an asset to have a criminal working (with devotion, not trolling) for a security company.

That conflation is another of my pet peeves, so thanks for clarifying.