How much information is too much information?
Amount of information and Human Rights
The Supreme Court has ruled that blanket disclosure of all criminal convictions and cautions, regardless of how minor or how long ago is a breach of Human Rights Law (Article 8 – right to respect for private life).
The court considered cases* involving a young man who had been forced to disclose youth warnings (the equivalent of an adult caution) that he had received when he was 11 years old relating to the theft of 2 bicycles when applying for a job and a university course many years later; and a woman who was refused a job as a care worker due to accepting a caution for shoplifting 8 years earlier.
*R (on the application of T and others) v Secretary of State for the Home Department and another [2014] UKSC 35
The ruling comes following a change in the law which we reported in our November 2013 E-Alert relating to the new filtering rules for ‘spent’ and minor convictions and cautions.
If you need advice on employment law, please contact Julia Furley on 020 7388 1658, or email her at jfurley@jfhlaw.co.uk.
If you find this article interesting, please like, comment and share it!
Please note that the information contained in this article was correct at the time of writing. There may have been updates to the law since the article was written, which may affect the information and advice given therein.
