Rejects rights red-tape headache for employers

Employers
will have to respond to requests from unsuccessful job applicants on why they
were rejected following the publication of the Information Commission’s code on
selection and recruitment.

This
is the view of employment lawyer Anne Coles from Fox Williams, who claims that
if employers don’t respond to these requests the applicant can ask the
Information Commission to carry out an assessment of the employers’ information
handling.

Applicants
will also be able to apply to court to have inaccurate information corrected
and for compensation where damage or distress has been caused.

Coles
thinks the code, that advises employers on their responsibilities concerning
the handling of personal data during the recruitment process, goes further than
the Data Protection Act 1998 requires.

“From
the day the decision to recruit is made until six months after the final
selection employers will have to deal with requests from disappointed
applicants wanting to find out the real reason they were rejected," said
Coles.

Sign up to our weekly round-up of HR news and guidance

Receive the Personnel Today Direct e-newsletter every Wednesday

Email(Required)

OptOut

From time to time, we will send you emails about selected products, events and services from Personnel Today and OHW+ - but you can choose to opt-out at any time. If you do not wish to receive these emails, please tick this box.

Phone

This field is for validation purposes and should be left unchanged.

Δ

David
Clancy, strategic policy officer for the Information Commission, confirmed that
job applicants have a right to see any information recorded about them by an
employer.

By Ben Willmott