Can employers keep a copy of your passport without hiring you?

[Applefruitcake]

I'm just wondering if this is common practice? Obviously, if an employer is going to hire you they need proof that you can legally work in the UK, but if the potential employer does actually intend to hire you, do they have the right to take a copy of your passport? I have been to a few interviews recently where they have done this. In the first instance, I assumed it was because they were planning on hiring me, but apparently this is common practice. In not sure if I feel comfortable with a company holding copies of my legal documents.

YABU - This is common practice
YANBU - They shouldn't keep your documents before starting the employment process

surely successful candidates will need to come back at some point anyway to sign the employment contract and have an induction etc. You could argue that it takes more time to leave the room during an interview to photocopy passports for every single candidate rather than just a few successful ones.

Asking for passports at interview stage - and this is fairly common - cuts down on interview time. If someone doesn't have the Right to Work in the UK then you can find out there and then and aren't wasting time interviewing them, shortlisting them, inviting them to assessment centres or Zoom interviews or whatever, only then finding out they are in the UK illegally.

Agree that there should be a process for disposing of copies for people who are rejected.

@raspberryCoulis I can understand the need to check, but is there any need to actually keep a physical copy?

I have never taken a copy of a passport before an offer is made.
Unnecessary unless an offer is made, it also leaves you open to accusations of discrimination.

Yes, they have to have a physical copy... for the time they are processing your application. They take copy so they don't keep your actual passport!

There are very few employers who won't be fully aware of the need to destroy the copy in good time - mainly because the government information page that tells them why they need it also tells them how/when to dispose of it. This has been standard practice for quite a while now!

Why are you bothered by it?

I would also feel uncomfortable leaving a trail of passport copies everywhere I applied to work.
I sympathise and I have left such a trail - but you can’t reason with most HR/Compliance wonks and they have something you want (a job) so no sense making yourself unpopular. Sadly it’s the result of government making employers police immigration.

There’s no legal duty to make and keep a copy of a passport to prove right to work - but it has become accepted practice as a way for employers to prove a check was made.

Getting managers to take and keep a copy at interview is particularly common in industries that have experienced issues with illegal working in the past and also where the manager is often the only person has direct contact with the employee.

Example is something like cleaning. Often the manager is the only person to ever meet the cleaner and a few years ago you would sometimes have whole teams of cleaners made up of illegals which also meant that the manager could easily exploit them if they knew and that they were exposing the company to liability.

Making the manager take a copy at interview means that HR sees a copy before the person arrives for their first shift and can approve the hire, there is also checking software. Some types of RTW also require you to get a response from the home office which can delay the process.

As per PP, unsuccessful applicants would have their copy destroyed.

Sadly it’s the result of government making employers police immigration. Yup! Employers, letting agents, landlords too!

But GDPR is really clear on the hows and whys. So it should never be an issue!

I was once asked before an interview for my passport. But they also asked if I was driving to work a copy of my driving licence and my car mot. It was for checkout in a supermarket. I declined all this. This was thru a recruitment company. Felt like a scam.

Yes, they have to have a physical copy... for the time they are processing your application

They absolutely do not have to, only for someone they are actually employing, if companies are using legal obligation for processing these copies then they are actually wrong. If you provide the information to a candidate then that is a breach - you can't state that the processing is due to legal obligation when it is not.

@sirfredfredgeorge

Yes, they have to have a physical copy... for the time they are processing your application

They absolutely do not have to, only for someone they are actually employing, if companies are using legal obligation for processing these copies then they are actually wrong. If you provide the information to a candidate then that is a breach - you can't state that the processing is due to legal obligation when it is not.

I work in the lettings industry and the only way to compete a Right to Rent check is to have a copy of a passport... so that's during processing. Surely it's the same for employers... they can't complete their checks without the information and if they choose to carry out those checks at the beginnig of the application process they can.

The government page on it doesn't seem to have any time constraints, it just say 'job applicant' not 'person you have decided to affer a job to" and the 2019 informatoon says quite clearly that the check have to be made before hiring - which seems obvious, but hey!

assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/773780/An_employer_s_guide_to_right_to_work_checks_-_January_2019.pdf

Then again we may be saying the same thing just differently! Semantics being what they are

My employer is a large national company and they only take passport copy on first day of starting the job, probably due to gdpr never heard of it being done at interview stage

I used to be a lecturer... we took them at interview stage, I think!

Though I only led interviews twice and HR dealt with it all, so I could easily be wrong.

But it still stands... only the info for those employed is held. A data record is held for all others - dates etc but no pictures etc.

This is standard practice.

They need to show they are meeting requirements to ensure you have a right to work. I think if they made you an offer without verifying this it will look suspect on them if they were ever checked by the authorities, also it would delay the process if they had to contact you to ask for your proof of right to work before sending you the formal job offer.

I've been for lecturing/teaching interviews in the past few years and a copy of my passport, another ID and all my qualifications going right back to O levels from 1979 have been photocopied at interview. I was very surprised I thought HR would just want a look at them. They said they copied every candidate's documents at this stage to speed things up if the preferred candidate didn't work out. Basically, they have copies of my entire identity and they got very shirty when I asked for the copies to be destroyed when every time internal candidates were appointed. One of these internal candidates told me he didn't have his school or degree level certificates anymore and that he'd never had to produce them. I'm not sure they actually did destroy the photocopies of my stuff, they were probably put in a bin when someoone got round to doing a clear out. Someone could be running a nice racket in identity theft.

Oh! OK! That's the last word on it then!

Pshaw!!

There are very few employers who won't be fully aware of the need to destroy the copy in good time - mainly because the government information page that tells them why they need it also tells them how/when to dispose of it. This has been standard practice for quite a while now!

I'm sure this is the case with large employers, but there are loads of operations that change hands frequently, are managed/run by those with little to no expertise or simply don't have a robust hiring process that will probably have records going back years that are kept despite being of no relevance (I'm looking at you, 10 years worth of employment records that I found in the space under the village hall stage!!).

I was involved in auditing just such an operation last year and it became clear that the guidance was confusing and seemed to contradict itself over the need to retain certain employee documents. This led to a culture of 'keep it just in case' which saw thousands of pages of potentially sensitive data being stored in a way that was insecure at best. When researching the legislation, I came across lots of similar cases where it was simply a case of not knowing, understanding or being able to afford to secure the data properly.

While I doubt that the majority of these have nefarious plans, they are vulnerable to those who do. The prevalence of digitised data makes it even harder to track down copies of documents send via email etc which does increase the chances of someone's personal data being out in cyber space and potentially open to abuse.

(I'm looking at you, 10 years worth of employment records that I found in the space under the village hall stage!!). Oof! That has to have been a scary moment!

I take it back! I am self employed now and have read up on a lot of the regs to see what I need to do if/when I take on an employee. Having been through the whole GDPR thing when it came in I suppose I was being a bit optimistic!

Also, surely sending in your passport at an earlier stage leads to ageism? It has our date of birth on it, which isn't on my CV.

@tectonicplates

Also, surely sending in your passport at an earlier stage leads to ageism? It has our date of birth on it, which isn't on my CV.

The people doing the interview don't see any personal data like your age. That's all kept by HR.

Unless you're a one man band of course.

I've only ever been asked for photograph ID after I was hired.