Reference checks on workers via the Criminal Records Bureau conflict with the right to a private life (Article 8 of the Human Rights Act), according to the Court of Appeal.

The CRB checking system is to be reviewed to decide what information employers should be able to access.

The decision follows judgements in favour of two jobseekers who discovered that historical or minor convictions were having a detrimental impact on their employment prospects.

In one case, a 21 year old man learned that police warnings, received when he was 11 in connections with bike thefts, were negatively affecting job offers after CRB check.

Another person was unable to get work caring for vulnerable adults because of of a shoplifting caution 10 years previously.

Source: People Management, March 2013, p.11.

Link: bit.ly/CIPDcrb

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• | Over-zealousness is disproportional: Judges rule CRB checks ‘incompatible’ with Human Rights Act! (truthaholics.wordpress.com)
• The lives blighted by CRB checks (telegraph.co.uk)