Employers rights to a copy of your passport or birth certificate.

[swee'pea99]

The base problem is Maggie got the idea of selling the council house right, however the fundamental problem is that for every house sold they should have been building between 1.5 and 2 new homes for each one sold.

The halt on building is one of the problems - arguably the biggest - but it's not the only one. Michael Portillo has been known to lament the fact that Margaret Thatcher's dearest and most heartfelt ambition - to make Britain a nation of homeowners - has crashed and burned, with home ownership now at a lower level than when she came to office. All that happened was a transfer of much of the nation's social housing into the hands of private landlords. (Among them, as it happens, nearly one in five MPs.)

As to the OP,

I think what may have prompted all this is the sudden spike in recent cases whereby people bought into the country as babies, woked here for the last 50+ years and then get into a lot of bother when they try to cliam their (justified) pension, and are told to "go home"

I think you're right. And it's what made me 'like' the OP...to me it has the same whiff about it as the cases to which you refer. 60 year residents with a lifetime of paying taxes suddenly being told they have to leave.

But I'm not surprised it's the law. It's the way things are headed.

 

[Tin Pot]

To explain.

Someone doesn't have the right to work in the UK - they are from outside the EU.

Is it likely that they would produce a forged (or indeed stolen genuine) Full Birth Certificate with at least one parent's name, plus an official document containing an NI number (which if genuine would be someone else's - the same person as the Birth Cert, if the fraud was not to be exposed, and if made up would be detected at first payroll run) as their proof of right to work in the UK? It's simply not a very smart way to do it.

Those seeking to pass themselves off as having right to work don't, at least in my not-so-limited experience (I think I was accountable for about 8,000 of said cheacks last year, give or take) use these documents. Typically one sees false passports, passport stamps giving right to remain, visas et al, some quite professional - or more likely people simply work in the black economy for "employers" who turn a blind eye, or who don't have effective checks in place.

Right, and that’s because they needed a false passport to get in in the first place? So why bother stealing other genuine documents if they don’t need them.

Okay, I’m with you there, but I’d say my concern around the security of HR records is the fraud they can be used to achieve elsewhere, not to achieve unauthorised employment.

 

[Bonefish Blues]

Right, and that’s because they needed a false passport to get in in the first place? So why bother stealing other genuine documents if they don’t need them.

Okay, I’m with you there, but I’d say my concern around the security of HR records is the fraud they can be used to achieve elsewhere, not to achieve unauthorised employment*.

...which is exactly the harm that people in this role are paid to avoid, with its attendant £ & reputational damage*.

I've not heard in my "trade press" of any breaches of security v-a-v loss of data, albeit I'm sure that they must have happened. My prejudiced view is that if I was going to steal info, I might be looking elsewhere, but I might be mistaken?

 

[Tin Pot]

...which is exactly the harm that people in this role are paid to avoid, with its attendant £ & reputational damage*.

I've not heard in my "trade press" of any breaches of security v-a-v loss of data, albeit I'm sure that they must have happened. My prejudiced view is that if I was going to steal info, I might be looking elsewhere, but I might be mistaken?

Speaking from the world of information security I would say it’s broadly opportunity that drives breaches, but targeted attacks have been on the rise these last five years, and in the last few years attacks on small business have become more frequent and significant.

Unfortunately all industries are still woefully immature on infosec, so actually noticing that data has been stolen at all is a problem. It costs money to be able to detect, and this undermines confidence in breach statistics. Most common is still that stolen data is found on the internet, and if possible traced back to the original breach and the company involved gets notified.

In simple terms, if I find a whole bunch of passport or birth certificates on the internet, how do I know who they were stolen from in the first place?


Digital Shadows have just reported finding an astonishing 12 petabytes of data, including payroll information:
https://www.theregister.co.uk/2018/04/05/billions_files_exposed_aws_ftp_wide_open/

“The most common data exposed was payroll and tax return files, which accounted for 700,000 and 60,000 files respectively. ”

Not exactly the HR data we’re discussing, admittedly, but still I think it illustrates the point.

 

[Bonefish Blues]

HR-related breaches of security are very common - some of the most common (although still outstripped by healthcare related breaches).

I'm aware of when data has been lost, I suppose I should qualify, but I'm not aware of HR data being targeted specifically.

 

[Bromptonaut]

Yet another example of where this policy is leading a whole generation of 'Windrush Children' potentially aliens in their own homeland:

https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news...cher-uk-50-years-loses-job-immigration-status

Well on way to a dozen cases publicised in Guardian but presumably only the tip of an iceberg.

 

[mjr]

Speaking from the world of information security […]
Not exactly the HR data we’re discussing, admittedly, but still I think it illustrates the point.

I think nothing short of breaching contracts by describing exactly which HR files of which of your clients were copied when — or at least found to be insecure — will satisfy some on here.