What are our legal obligations under the Data Protection Act for obtaining and supplying references?
The common belief that the Act gives individuals the right to gain access to references about them is not true. Under Schedule 7 of the DP Act, individuals are explicitly excluded from access to references about them, unless the reference was not given in confidence. But this exemption is limited to while the confidential reference is in the hands of the organisation which gave it, according to two publications from the Information Commissioner: the Data Protection Act, legal guidance, December 2001, and the Employment Practices Data Protection Code, Part 1, March 2002. Part 1 of the code says the role of references is to confirm factual details supplied by applicants.
