Secret police database ‘blacklists the innocent’

Unproven claims and even crimes of friends disclosed to employers

BOSSES are being given careerdestroying information about jobseekers by police – with campaigners warning it is a breach of privacy laws.

Dropped allegations and discontinued charges, court acquittals and past convictions of relatives and friends are being shared with employers – even if the applicant has never been convicted of a criminal offence. Those affected by the disclosures are people working with vulnerable adults and children, including nurses, teachers and social workers.

One woman, who has no criminal convictions, was labelled as a ‘known associate of a drug dealer’ – after she had a brief relationship with a man whose criminal activities were unknown to her.

Police passed the information on to her future employer, resulting in her job offer being withdrawn.

Another woman who had enjoyed a long career in the care sector had her ambitions shattered after officers told a prospective employer about an alleged assault – for which she was not found guilty.

More than 1,200 people may have been affected by the revelations in the past three years, figures show.

Last night, campaigners criticised Police Scotland for ‘interfering’ with a person’s right to privacy and called for an overhaul of the practice.

The information compiled by police is included on a future employee’s Protecting Vulnerable Groups (PVG) certificate. This compulsory background document is created for everyone who works with vulnerable adults and children. Space is given for Police Scotland to include ‘other relevant information’, also known as ‘soft information’.

This can include references to noncriminal behaviour, allegations and charges that have been dropped, and the behaviour of friends and family.

The certificate is passed to employers once a job offer has been made.

Beth Weaver, of penal reform group Howard League Scotland, said: ‘The information can be arbitrary in that it depends on the whim of the police and what they believe is relevant. It can represent a challenge to human rights. No other European country outside the UK uses soft information in its disclosure system.

‘In particular, the details of charges of which a person is found not guilty should never count as “other relevant information”.’

A spokesman for the Scottish Human Rights Commission said: ‘The regulations fail to provide safeguards against arbitrary interferences with Article 8 rights – right to privacy.

‘The current law contains no provision for the subject to see or challenge the information prior to the information being disclosed. Therefore, in a number of cases, the provision of such information has been deemed incompatible with the law.’

PVG certificates were introduced in Scotland in 2007. A total of 1,210 of them have contained additional ‘soft information’ in the past three years, figures show. The only way these personal details can be removed is if police delete the submission.

A survey of employers in England found 37 per cent of job offers were withdrawn after bosses received PVG certificates. There has been no equivalent study in Scotland.

Reforms to the system have been proposed in the Disclosure (Scotland) Bill 2019, allowing the job applicant to see the certificate before it is sent to the employer and possibly appeal.

‘It can be a challenge to human rights’