EXPERT WITNESS: Employment practices:  workers’ health: Part 2

Part 2: draft guidance on data protection, medical examinations and testing, and other topics

Summary:

In part two of her analysis of the ICO’s draft new data protection guidance on workers’ health information, OH law expert Professor Diana Kloss explains how it applies to medical examinations, drug and alcohol testing, health monitoring and the retention of OH records.

Consultation on the Information Commissioner’s Office (ICO) draft employment practices guidance on information about workers’ health closed on 26 January 2023¹. In the first part of this article, I discussed data protection law as it affects occupational health (OH) in general, principally the legal and ethical duty of confidence². In this part, I look at specific issues covered by the draft guidance that often cause difficulty for OH practitioners.

Legal claims or judicial acts

In part one, I explained that the UK General Data Protection Regulation (UK GDPR) and the Data Protection Act 2018(DPA 2018) have not repealed the common law and ethical duty of confidence of health professionals…

 

Diana Kloss is a barrister, former part-time employment judge, Acas arbitrator and author.

Author: Kloss D

Tags confidentiality data protection

Occupational Health at Work February/March 2023 (vol. 19/5) pp37-40

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