ICO consultation on draft employment practices guidance – information about workers’ health

The Information Commissioner’s Office (ICO) is producing an online resource with topic-specific guidance on employment practices and data protection. We are releasing our drafts of the different topic areas in stages and adding to the resource over time. A draft of the guidance on handling information about workers’ health is now out for public consultation.

The draft guidance aims to provide practical guidance about handling the health information of workers in accordance with data protection legislation and to promote good practice.

ICO also intends to produce additional practical tools (such as checklists) to go alongside the guidance to help support employment practices.

Before drafting the guidance, the ICO issued a call for views between August and October 2021. This sought input from relevant stakeholders including:

• employers;
• professional associations;
• those representing the interests of staff;
• recruitment agencies;
• employment dispute resolution bodies;
• workers, volunteers, employees; and
• suppliers of employment technology solutions.

The call for views helped to inform our work in developing updated employment guidance. You can view a summary document of the responses on our website.

The public consultation on the draft guidance will remain open until 5pm on Thursday 26 January 2023. The ICO welcomes feedback on the specific questions set out in the consultation.

Source: ico.org.uk