Checking a job applicant’s digital footprint 




This is an increasingly common practice, and its impact on a prospective applicant can be severe. The TUC warns in its guidance, Facing up to Facebook, that employers should not be using social media to screen candidates. It creates a high risk of unlawful discrimination (see Chapter 7), or unlawful trade union-related victimisation, or blacklisting (see Chapter 5). Irrelevant information about ethnicity, sexuality, trade union membership or activity, or other personal matters can easily be revealed online, wholly undermining the application process.



It also unfairly distorts the selection pool, favouring those with a strong public profile or affinity for digital media, even when not relevant to the role. 




Where someone's social media profile is publicly accessible, the human right to privacy under Article 8 of the European Convention on Human Rights is unlikely to be infringed. However, data protection laws may be broken. According to the Article 29 Data Protection Working Party, an independent European advisory body on data protection and privacy set up in connection with the new GDPR (see Chapter 15), “the vetting of job applicants’ social media profiles in order to consider their suitability for the role in question will be unlawful [in breach of data protection laws], unless the information is relevant to the role in question and applicants have clearly been warned that their accounts will be reviewed”.