

Legitimate interests: processing is necessary for your own legitimate interests (unless there’s good reason to believe the employee’s personal interests override these legitimate interests).Public task: processing is needed in the interest of the public.Vital interests: processing is needed in a life or death situation.Legal obligation: you need to process in order to comply with the law.Contract: it’s necessary to process data because of a contract with the employee.Consent: the employee has given clear consent for a specific purpose.The do’s and don’ts you should expect from employers ProcessingĮmployers must meet at least one of these six lawful bases for processing set employee data: Only keep personal data for as long as necessary.Ensure that data gathering is relevant rather than excessive.Only collect personal data for specific purposes, don’t use it for any other purpose than specified to the employee.Process an employee's data in a fair and transparent way.Five golden rules for employers to follow Keep in mind that while an employer is allowed to ask an employee to disclose details of their age, sexuality, religion and more in the interests of equality monitoring, the employee is not under any obligation to disclose any of this information if they don’t want to. Employers need to have employee consent before processing: Some data can be sensitive and so employers can’t play fast and loose with information they have on employees. What data can't an employer process without your permission?

Any training that has occurred during employment.Any disciplinary action the employee has been involved in as evidence, in case the employee takes the case to court.Accidents at work for your records and in case someone makes a claim against the company.


Where an employer implements good data protection policies and practices in the workplace, they can expect: What should employers do to protect employee data? This includes automated and computerised personal information, paper records or any organised ‘well structured’ filing system. Personal data also includes emails involving a named employee and sick leave records. What do you mean by employee personal data?īy personal data we mean any information that can be used to identify a certain employee. That’s why in the workplace it’s important to develop a culture of respect for private life, data protection, security and confidentiality. Employers hold a lot of personal information about their employees, from whether or not they have a medical condition to their salary and bank account details.
