Personnel Today
  • Home
    • All PT content
  • Email sign-up
  • Topics
    • HR Practice
    • Employee relations
    • Learning & training
    • Pay & benefits
    • Wellbeing
    • Recruitment & retention
    • HR strategy
    • HR Tech
    • The HR profession
    • Global
    • All HR topics
  • Legal
    • Case law
    • Commentary
    • Flexible working
    • Legal timetable
    • Maternity & paternity
    • Shared parental leave
    • Redundancy
    • TUPE
    • Disciplinary and grievances
    • Employer’s guides
  • AWARDS
    • Personnel Today Awards
    • The RAD Awards
  • Jobs
    • Find a job
    • Jobs by email
    • Careers advice
    • Post a job
  • Brightmine
    • Learn more
    • Products
    • Free trial
    • Request a quote
  • Webinars
  • Advertise
  • OHW+

Personnel Today

Register
Log in
Personnel Today
  • Home
    • All PT content
  • Email sign-up
  • Topics
    • HR Practice
    • Employee relations
    • Learning & training
    • Pay & benefits
    • Wellbeing
    • Recruitment & retention
    • HR strategy
    • HR Tech
    • The HR profession
    • Global
    • All HR topics
  • Legal
    • Case law
    • Commentary
    • Flexible working
    • Legal timetable
    • Maternity & paternity
    • Shared parental leave
    • Redundancy
    • TUPE
    • Disciplinary and grievances
    • Employer’s guides
  • AWARDS
    • Personnel Today Awards
    • The RAD Awards
  • Jobs
    • Find a job
    • Jobs by email
    • Careers advice
    • Post a job
  • Brightmine
    • Learn more
    • Products
    • Free trial
    • Request a quote
  • Webinars
  • Advertise
  • OHW+

Personnel Today

Staff access to information is bad news for employers

by Personnel Today 28 Oct 2003
by Personnel Today 28 Oct 2003

‘Access requests’ from staff to find out what information employers hold
about them is an unwelcome development, which is out of synch with data
protection legislation

The deputy director general of the Confederation of British Industry (CBI)
condemned the Information Commissioner’s draft code on the Data Protection Act
1998 as "a gift to lawyers that will not help companies in any way, shape
or form". These words ring true to a growing number of employers who have
been bruised by the increasing trend for staff (usually ex-employees) serving
"access requests" under the Act.

An individual’s right to find out what information their employer (or
ex-employer) holds about them, and to require changes to be made to information
where it is inaccurate, goes to the very heart of data protection legislation.
However, a growing number of disgruntled employees are using access requests as
a nuisance tactic in litigation. The requests are a pain, not just because
embarrassing documents may have to be disclosed, but also because an enormous
amount of time and money can be involved in responding to them.

Access requests extend to e-mails and other computer records and it is this
area that has caused the most headaches for lawyers and HR professionals. It is
widely accepted that employees have the right to receive copies of information
held on them in a paper-based "relevant filing system" – that is
information that has been structured by a reference to an individual, or by
criteria relating to individuals, in such a way that information on a
particular individual is "readily accessible". This clearly covers
personnel files. The reason e-mails are also caught is because they fall
squarely within the other category of information that staff are entitled to
receive copies of, namely, information processed by means of equipment
operating automatically.

Once an employee has made a valid access request (and there are a number of
checks which should be made to ensure that it is valid), the individual is
entitled, within a period of 40 days, to be given:

– a copy of his personal data in permanent form, with any unintelligible
terms or codes explained

– a description of the data

– told for what purposes the data are processed

– the recipients of the data; and

– any information available about the source of the data.

The Act contains a number of exemptions, but perhaps the most difficult one
to assess, is where the provision of data involves a "disproportionate
effort". This exemption relates only to the requirement to provide the
worker with a copy of material in permanent form. The exemption does not
qualify the obligation to search for material in the first place, but applies
strictly to the ease with which a copy of it can be provided in permanent form.

So, does this mean that an employee is entitled to view on screen hundreds
(possibly thousands) of e-mails, even where to print them off and provide them
in a permanent form would amount to a disproportionate effort? Well, the Information
Commissioner has provided potentially helpful guidance on this, where he says
he may exercise his discretion not to enforce a worker’s access rights if he is
satisfied that to give access would involve disproportionate effort on the part
of the employer. This suggests that when the Information Commissioner exercises
his discretion on whether to take enforcement action, he may apply the
exemption not just to the provision of copies in permanent form, but also to
the idea of access itself (so, viewing on screen too).

Furthermore, if a worker issued High Court proceedings for breach of the
access request Act, the court has discretion as to whether to penalise an
employer.

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

Receive the Personnel Today Direct e-newsletter every Wednesday

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

The deployment of access requests in employment litigation is an unwelcome
development for most employers, and isn’t in line with the spirit of data
protection legislation. The practical advice is to have a policy for handling
access requests, which may contain technology/resource driven parameters for
e-mail searches.

By Lisa Mayhew, partner, Lovells, Employment group

Personnel Today

Personnel Today articles are written by an expert team of award-winning journalists who have been covering HR and L&D for many years. Some of our content is attributed to "Personnel Today" for a number of reasons, including: when numerous authors are associated with writing or editing a piece; or when the author is unknown (particularly for older articles).

previous post
Engineering federation revamps image with new name
next post
Crisis in sicknote system will force major overhaul

You may also like

Forward features list 2025 – submitting content to...

23 Nov 2024

Features list 2021 – submitting content to Personnel...

1 Sep 2020

Large firms have no plans to bring all...

26 Aug 2020

A typical work-from-home lunch: crisps

24 Aug 2020

Occupational health on the coronavirus frontline – ‘I...

21 Aug 2020

Occupational Health & Wellbeing research round-up: August 2020

7 Aug 2020

Acas: Redundancy related enquiries surge 160%

5 Aug 2020

Coronavirus: lockdown ‘phase two’ may bring added headaches...

17 Jul 2020

Unemployment to top 4 million as workers come...

15 Jul 2020

Over 1,000 UK redundancies expected at G4S Cash...

14 Jul 2020

  • Preparing for a new era of workforce planning (webinar) WEBINAR | Employers now face...Read more
  • 2025 Employee Communications Report PROMOTED | HR and leadership...Read more
  • Prioritising performance management: Strategies for success (webinar) WEBINAR | In today’s fast-paced...Read more
  • Retaining Female Talent: Four Ways to Reduce Workplace Drop Out PROMOTED | International Women’s Day...Read more

Personnel Today Jobs
 

Search Jobs

PERSONNEL TODAY

About us
Contact us
Browse all HR topics
Email newsletters
Content feeds
Cookies policy
Privacy policy
Terms and conditions

JOBS

Personnel Today Jobs
Post a job
Why advertise with us?

EVENTS & PRODUCTS

The Personnel Today Awards
The RAD Awards
Employee Benefits
Forum for Expatriate Management
OHW+
Whatmedia

ADVERTISING & PR

Advertising opportunities
Features list 2025

  • Facebook
  • Twitter
  • Instagram
  • Linkedin


© 2011 - 2025 DVV Media International Ltd

Personnel Today
  • Home
    • All PT content
  • Email sign-up
  • Topics
    • HR Practice
    • Employee relations
    • Learning & training
    • Pay & benefits
    • Wellbeing
    • Recruitment & retention
    • HR strategy
    • HR Tech
    • The HR profession
    • Global
    • All HR topics
  • Legal
    • Case law
    • Commentary
    • Flexible working
    • Legal timetable
    • Maternity & paternity
    • Shared parental leave
    • Redundancy
    • TUPE
    • Disciplinary and grievances
    • Employer’s guides
  • AWARDS
    • Personnel Today Awards
    • The RAD Awards
  • Jobs
    • Find a job
    • Jobs by email
    • Careers advice
    • Post a job
  • Brightmine
    • Learn more
    • Products
    • Free trial
    • Request a quote
  • Webinars
  • Advertise
  • OHW+