Thank you for your answer.

What I described applies to anybody how seeks employment with one of these big companies here in Ireland. The issue isn’t background check yes or no. The issue is that they trick you in their contracts, as described above.

I’m sorry that my questions seemed to ask for legal advice, that wasn’t my intention. I hoped that, maybe, I get a legal pointer in regards to this specific constellation: Subsidiary of big US company in Ireland; Applicant Non-Irish, but from the EU; Security Company, who does the background check, from the US or UK; Applicant doesn’t get in advance informed about such background checks, but after she signed the contract.

Anyway, I can imagine that even if you wanted to give a general account about the legal situation in this regard, it wouldn’t be by far to complicated.

I will take your advice and seek legal advice.

Again, thank you very much for the quick response.

Regards,

Wolf.

I think the issues you raise are likely to relate specifically to non-Irish or non-EU individuals being hired for certain jobs in Ireland.

In relation to the questions you ask, you should take legal advice if you have concerns (I cannot give legal advice here).

You could also make enquiries with the Data Protection Commissioner. He has published a brief note on this issue here: http://dataprotection.ie/viewdoc.asp?DocID=636

Rossa

very useful article, but it doesn’t covers the current recruitment process of some, if not all, big companies in Ireland. The procedure is:

1 One or more phone interviews – standard stuff and completely OK.

2 Face to face interview – still standard nothing to complain. In general they tell the applicant that they check the CV – they don’t call it background check. They don’t disclose how they conduct this checks.

3 After approximately a week the applicant gets an email that she has gotten the job, attached is the contract. At this point an applicant must believe that the checks are done, and the results are satisfying. But if you read the contract or rather the “Offer of Employment” it states at the beginning, “On behalf of XXXX I am please to extend an offer of employment to you, details of which are set forth below. This offer is conditional upon the receipt of acceptable references from your current employer and fulfilling the criteria as required by Irish Immigration Laws and work permit regulations.” Still no word about an additional background check, only the note about the references from the current employer. The applicant most likely will be confused about the wording, and will call the recruiter. The recruiter will play down this paragraph and assures the applicant that everything is OK, and that she only have to sign the “Offer of Employment” and the “Terms and Condition”. So, she will sign the papers, resign from her current job and, if necessary, move nearer to the new job.

A couple of days later she will get an email from a security company from the UK or USA, not from Ireland, that they are conducting a background check on behalf of company XXXX, and they will request a whole bunch of information and documents, amongst those are a so called “Consents” document which has to be signed by the applicant. By signing this document she agrees with everything what this company does and will do with the information. In addition they want that you name a so called character reference. That must be a person which knows the applicant at least three years and must not a relative.

The worse thing here is, that she doesn’t know anything about this security company, and it’s hard to get any information about it, because it’s not an Irish company.

The following handling is unbelievable and like a nightmare, multiple agents, she has repeatedly upload the documents like passport, certificates etc. on a website. If they are questions she can call the agent, which is quite expensive and tedious because of the fact that the agents are changing, or write emails, which isn’t less tedious.

This whole procedure seems to me illegal. The applicant gets tricked, and has then no choice, and the worse is, that the applicant gets no information what actually happened – who will be called, what was said etc.

It turned out that these security companies are working with a specific enquiry technique. That makes perfectly sense, because if they call a company or private person in Spain, France, Germany etc. they actually won’t get any information, but if they phrase their question as fact and asking for a confirmation, that’s a different situation. In other words, they claim something about the applicant. The problem here is that the applicant doesn’t know anything about the details, the applicant never gets a protocol or copy of the results, but may get in loads of difficulties without having done anything wrong.

My questions are

a) Is it legaly OK, that an applicant gets tricked / forced to sign the consense document?

b) What is the legal situation when a company hires a security company abroad to conduct background checks?

Thank you in advance.

Regards,

Wolf.