Personal Information

Wyndham

pinkshoes wrote: »

I suspect it's HR being nosey, and I don't overly trust them. Speaking to others, they've also filled many of the boxes with "N/A", as they haven't been told what the information is for.

I think I'm right in saying that under the Data Protection Act you have the right to ask that question, and you should ask that question. Though I have at the back of my mind that if it's a form and not on a computer system, the rules may be slightly different - so maybe they are being sneaky?

tizerbelle

We ask for doctors details for our employees along with any known allergies (peanuts / penicillin). The reason behind this is that should there be a serious accident and you were unconscious we could provide known allergies that may affect treatment by the emergency services/hospital and let them have the details of your doctor at the earliest opportunity so that the hospital could call them for any medical history. Fortunately we have never had to give this information out to anyone yet and it has never been used for any other purpose.

Family details - could be a combination of who your emergency contacts are in case of an accident and who your dependants are in case you need to take time off to look after them. We don't collect dependent details - we're a small firm anyway, we pretty much know everyone's family lives anyway. We do however collect the name; mobile, home phone, work phone and relationship of two people as your emergency contacts. Again we've never had to use these but they are there (and reviewed annually) on a just in case basis.

Where I used to work car details were requested because there were over 500 people working there so they needed to know for security reasons and to know who the nutters were racing the wrong way round the one way system on the site and so they could let me know when I left my lights on - at least once a week!

jessicamb

Wyndham wrote: »

I think I'm right in saying that under the Data Protection Act you have the right to ask that question, and you should ask that question. Though I have at the back of my mind that if it's a form and not on a computer system, the rules may be slightly different - so maybe they are being sneaky?

Under the DPA all data formats have the same rights/responsibilities. They should only be capturing and storing data for a specific purpose and be able to explain what for if asked, they should keep it secure (so paper forms should be locked away etc) and you should be able to see what information the company hold about you.

surreysaver

tizerbelle wrote: »

We ask for doctors details for our employees along with any known allergies (peanuts / penicillin). The reason behind this is that should there be a serious accident and you were unconscious we could provide known allergies that may affect treatment by the emergency services/hospital and let them have the details of your doctor at the earliest opportunity so that the hospital could call them for any medical history. Fortunately we have never had to give this information out to anyone yet and it has never been used for any other purpose.

All NHS locations have access to this information on the PDS database, so no need for your employer to have it.

DCFC79

Personally i think all the data thats being asked of the OP is a little OTT, once ivestarted work at a new job i havent been asked for none of the following:

car make/model/registration
Qualifications
Languages spoke
nationality (they knew this from my passport so why ask for it at a later date)
email

the following have been asked for on another form i was given when i started:

Doctor details
Emergency contacts eg parent etc
dependants

pinkshoes

They want to keep all our details electronically; something to do with clocking in cards... I also have to sign at the bottom to declare that I have not suppressed any information!

Thanks for the info on the DPA. I will ask them specifically what they want certain bits of info for, as I still don't see why they need to know all this.

It's not an overly professional company, and when doing anything, it's generally for their own benefit rather than that of the employee, hence my reluctance to hand over unnecessary information!

DVardysShadow

pinkshoes wrote: »

They want to keep all our details electronically; something to do with clocking in cards... I also have to sign at the bottom to declare that I have not suppressed any information!

If it is to do with clocking in cards, then they need very little of this info - and I understand it is illegal for them to keep it, because it is not required for the declared purpose of the system. As for signing about not suppressing information, I would just cross that out.