Illegal questions?

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Hi,

When a recruitment consultants asks questions like ethnic origin, marital status and religion, are they illegal? When someone puts you forward for a "role" asking these sort of questions, it is usually fake and just to put you on their database?

 

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no it is not illegal to ask those questions although they are not allowed to dicriminate which is illegal. yes you will go on their database, if you want to use them they must have your details.

 

What he said.

Gathering such information for statistical purposes is perfectly normal. The nationality and ethnic origin is perfectly normal and religion has to be in there somewhere it seems. I've noticed 'sexual orientation' coming up more often (no pun intended), which I'm not so sure about.

As GBL says, it's illegal to discriminate on the basis of this information - but if that's the case, I can't help but wonder 'why collect it'? If anything I worry more about reverse discrimination. If they are gathering this information, sooner or later some bean counter is going to raise the issue that we don't have enough lesbian eskimo evangelists working for us - so how do you think they'll correct that embarassing little oversight?

 

Thanks for the responses guys

 

The only problem with that analogy is that lesbian eskimo evangelists don't really have a problem getting employment. They're some of the hardest workers out there, I've found.

Your mileage may vary.

 

That's very true.

Unfortunately, the last place I worked was wall-to-wall with them so we had to let some of them go.




For statistical reasons.

 

Applying directly then I think if you fill out an application form the personal details form is usually seperate from the main application form and the department hiring doesn't see that part. Recruitment companies then yes they probably use all that info to populate their database.