What is my recourse when employment details are distributed without my prior consent?

Question

A colleges personnel department recently distributed my personal details without prior consent. The position advertised was a full time post. The personnel department gave the details to the head of the department who in turn passed them onto someone else for a lower position without a phone call or email. I raised this question with the personnel department and they are aware I am upset and will return a response in 2-3 days. Do I have any rights?

Answer 1

Sounds like a Data Protection issue. The personnel dept should only have passed them to the HOD for the post you were applying for. In fact if they were doing their job properly they could have passed your details with all personal information balnked out e.g. name/phone number/age etc.

Answer 2

No you have no recourse I am afraid. When you submitted your details to the college you grant "implied" authorisation to use your data within their organisation. They cannot send it on to any other third party without prior consent but if it is within the same college there is no case to answer.

The main question from them would be what "suffering or conseuential loss" did you have - which from the brief detail is nothing other than feeling upset. Sorry no recourse on this one.

Answer 3

I think this is breach of part of the Data Protection Act. I would start looking at this as a first point of call. See the link below

Answer 4

Wouldn't have thought so. You applied to the college and although it was for a particular position, which i assume you didn't get, they were actually trying to help you in finding an alternative position. I don't actually see the problem.

Answer 5

You applied to the College, not to an individual person, so in my view the college is entitled to use your details as it sees fit. They have retained them internally and not shared them outside.