Companies
will fall foul of the law if they use drug tests to detect whether employees
use illegal substances at home, a government watchdog has warned.
Information
commissioner Richard Thomas has published a draft of the final part of the
Employment Practices Data Protection Code.
Employers
should usually only test staff for alcohol and drugs if it was a matter of
health and safety at work, he said.
The
code aims to give employers clear and practical guidance about complying with
the Data Protection Act when handling information about workers’ health.
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