Are they allowed to ask this?

[FencesFallInWind]

DC applying for a job. This is a mandatory question.
Are they allowed to ask this? Or is it ok because you can say "prefer not to say" or possibly in the interests of staff safety?
Just curious!

In Northern Ireland this is standard and part of equality monitoring. It generally isn’t used as part of the recruitment process, but data is collected later.

Just put prefer not to say

its for the company to track diversity of applicants usually and doesn’t go to the hiring manager

It's a legal requirement if you're hiring in NI, and if people put "prefer not to say" the. hR usually assign a value based on your postcode or primary school.

In NI then yes employers have to record this.

Interesting, I did not know that!
Thanks all!

Isn't it obvious? The option is there to 'prefer not to say' so it provides an automatic opt-out

As PP have said, it's a legal requirement.