Last week at the Enhance Media conference Kevin Barrow, Partner at Osborne Clarke, ran a Master Class on Legal Challenges & New Laws. He’s been kind enough to share the main areas that were discussed and it’s a nice overview and insight into some areas recruiters should be aware on with regards to online recruitment.
Data protection looks about to become a much more serious issue for all involved in online recruitment – what does this mean for online recruitment?
o Fines are going up
o Express consents to use of/holding of personal data will be needed from candidates – how will this work when aggregators use data submitted to someone else?
o How will the new right to be forgotten work? And how long should you hang on to candidate data under the stricter new regime?
o Lots of uncertainty about future law changes relating to transfers of personal data outside the UK – where do the online recruiters you work with host data?
o Changes in data protection law mean liability will rest with all in the supply chain. In other words a hirer may be responsible for what a supplier does wrong. What checks will hirers/employers have to carry out on suppliers? Are indemnities enough?
Social and professional networking sites are an increasing part of the online recruitment landscape – what are the legal issues?
o The UK regulator has confirmed that usage of social and professional networking sites for “non domestic purposes” is regulated by data protection law
o Where people in hiring roles or at recruitment companies use personal networking pages for recruitment purposes that is non domestic usage AND IS A CRIMINAL OFFENCE UNLESS DONE IN COMPLIANCE WITH DATA PROTECTION LEGISLATION
o That means that employees need to do such networking under the ambit of, and in accordance with the rules of, their employer’s properly drawn social media policies
o That in turn means that, unless the employer is prepared to prohibit and prevent all such activity IT MUST ASSERT OWNERSHIP OF EMPLOYEE SOCIAL MEDIA ACTIVITY WITH UPDATED SOCIAL MEDIA POLICIES AND EMPLOYMENT TERMS AND CONDITIONS. Failure to do so is likely to be a criminal offence. It by the way seems unlikely to us that employers will prohibit and prevent all such activity – use of personal LinkedIn accounts for recruitment is hard-wired into people’s systems now and some would say that is largely what professional networking sites are designed for.
o (Assertion of ownership is at odds with contractual terms issued by some professional networking sites and so this is a complex issue, but employers must take advice and we consider they should nevertheless assert ownership and should expect employees to agree to it)
Deregulation of online recruitment has been suggested by the UK Government (to remove uncertainty about whether they can or cannot charge work seekers/what they can charge hirers/what checks they have to do on candidates)
o Bad news: there does not seem to have been much progress and we are not sure it will be a priority if there is a change of Government towards the left
o This makes it possible that some online recruitment platforms will be deemed to be (and prosecuted for) technically operating illegally which could have knock on consequences for users
Sharing economy platforms (in which hirers can find temporary resource online) are growing fast: think ebay for jobs. Uber and drivers exchange do this for drivers, Work Service and oDesk for IT programmers, care.com for carers, homejoy for cleaners, Rated People for plumbers etc..
o But their business models are affected by a range of tax, recruitment and payment services regulation
o Deregulation of sharing platforms has been proposed by the Government (to remove uncertainty about whether they can or cannot charge work seekers/what they can charge hirers/what checks they have to do on candidates)
o Again we are not very confident about the progress that will be made though there seems very high level political sponsorship of this subsector (because it encourages economic growth by allowing homeworkers/primary carers/part timers more easily to find work)
Finally Kevin shared with me that there was a large portrait of his ancestor John Barrow at the back of the room. He was founder of the RGS and head of Royal Navy administration 1804-1844, when the Royal Navy was the largest employer in the world. No doubt Kevin found this quite daunting but I’m sure John was impressed! As head of the Navy he was the person who decided to send Napoleon Bonaparte into exile in St Helena so I’ve been advised not share this in France 🙂
Kevin and his team are specialists in online recruitment and happy to talk to any recruiters concerned about any of the issues referred to in this overview. They would be very interested in hearing from recruiters and online recruiters worried about data ownership, or from anyone looking at the funding, acquisition or sale of any online recruitment business.”
