Equality

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Equality laws prohibit discrimination that occurs in relation to one or more of the following characteristics:

• age;

• disability;

• gender reassignment;

• marriage and civil partnership;

• race;

• pregnancy and maternity;

• religion or belief;

• sex; and

• sexual orientation.

In England, Wales and Scotland the relevant law is the Equality Act 2010 (EA 10). Northern Ireland has several sets of regulations instead of one consolidated Act, but the law is broadly the same as in the rest of the UK.

Equality law will become relevant if monitoring:

• is directed at a worker because of one of these protected characteristics (direct discrimination); or

• is applied to everyone but takes place in such a way that its effects are worse for someone with a particular protected characteristic (indirect discrimination); or

• results in unfavourable treatment of someone because of their disability (disability-related discrimination); or

• puts a disabled person at a disadvantaged compared with a non-disabled person and the employer does not make reasonable adjustments (failure to make reasonable adjustments).