DATA PROTECTION ACT

It would be unwise to delete personnel records immediately after an employee has left the company. You may be asked for references for the ex- employee or the ex-employee may lodge an employment tribunal claim or grievance so you will need to refer to your files. The CIPD recommend that you retain files for 6 years but there is no actual legal requirement to do so.

Payroll records are different and they need to be kept for 3 years after the end of the tax year which they left in.

How long after an Employee has left the company must we keep their records on file? Or can we delete/destroy their records straight away?

This post has been removed because it contravened our guidelines.

This post has been removed because it contravened our guidelines.

If the other department is part of the same company in which the HR function resides, then both departments are part of the same company which is the data controller of the employee's personal data so giving address labels containing the employees home addresses is not a disclosure of information outside the company. (Obviously the answer is different if the other department is in a separate company).

However, the employee data has been collected for HR purposes and you do not say in your question for what purposes the other department wants the address lables. If the company has not given its employees a data protection notice stating the purposes and uses to which their personal data will be put, the the company will be confined to using the HR data only for those purposes which were obvious to the employees at the time of collection - those purposes are likely to be personnel administration and management, payment of wages and salaries, appraisals, promotions and disciplinary matters etc. If the purposes for which the other department wants the personal data fall within these obvious purposes then there is no breach of the DPA in handing the personal data over. If the use falls outside the list of ovbious purposes then it will be a breach of the second data protection principle to hand over the personal data.

Will I be breaking the Data Protection Act by allowing another department to have address labels which contain employees' home addresses, or is this information suppose to remain with H/R only?