The UK's data protection watchdog has asked the government
to introduce new laws to prevent employers ordering job applicants
to use the Data Protection Act to obtain copies of their police
files, following a series of IT-related delays at the Criminal
Records Bureau.
Information commissioner Richard Thomas has told the Lord
Chancellor's Department that it should take steps to outlaw the
practice now, rather than wait "indefinitely" for the CRB to begin
offering a basic criminal checking service to employers.
The ability of the CRB's IT systems to deal with the demand from
employers was called into question by an independent review earlier
this year which called for new electronic systems to be introduced
to clear the massive backlog of applications for high-level checks
against teachers and childcare workers.
The government, which is renegotiating its £400m contract with
Capita to provide and manage the IT systems for the bureau, has
been forced to postpone the most simple basic background checks
until new systems capable of dealing with the demand are
introduced.
Meanwhile, requests to the police for copies of personal files
under the Data Protection Act are putting police resources under
strain, the data watchdog said last week. Many requests are made by
people seeking overseas travel visas, who need to prove they have
clean criminal records.
"The police receive thousands and thousands of what they believe
are enforced subject access requests. A lot of police time and
resources are devoted to these subject access requests," said
assistant information commissioner David Smith.
The Office of the Information Commissioner is concerned that until
the CRB service is up and running, enforced access by employers
could put job applicants at a disadvantage by disclosing spent
convictions that should have elapsed under the Rehabilitation of
Offenders Act.
In a letter to the Lord Chancellor's Department, disclosed last
week, Thomas warned that enforced subject access "undermines the
important public policy objective of enabling those with a criminal
record to put their pasts behind them".
Although the government introduced measures to outlaw the practice
in the Data Protection Act 1998, they will only come into force
when alternative criminal record checks are available throughout
the UK.
But the failure to provide a service in Northern Ireland, and the
indefinite postponing of basic record checks for England and Wales,
means that these conditions might never be met unless further
legislation is introduced, said Thomas.