The law


Activities involving storing, using and processing personal information about individual workers will normally be covered by the Data Protection Act 1998 (DPA) (see Chapter 7). Employers also store a range of information on employees in personnel files, some of which may come from external sources, such as previous employers, health screening agencies, credit reference agencies and the Criminal Records Bureau.


There are a number of others laws and international standards, including the Human Rights Act 1998 and the European Convention on Human Rights (guaranteeing privacy rights), that can be referred to in relation to workplace monitoring and collection of employee data. These are discussed in more detail in Chapter 7.