What, an invasion? Well, not that bad, but it is an area that employers need to protect themselves. From what? Identity fraud and unwittingly employing illegal workers.

In Terminator they used dogs to sniff out the “intruders”, the robots. We need to use a much more banal way – seeing their photo ID!

This might seem a bit doubting of “honest” employees (do such things exist??!) but it is to protect you, the employer. Simply by taking a photocopy of their photo id and any visas, you can protect yourself from monsters taking on the identity of honest workers.

However you can’t just test the ones who “look foreign” – that would be discrimination and land you in a tribunal!

“People like us – my employees are who they say they are.” Really? How do you know? These are often people who will be representing you to your clients – wouldn’t you want to know you had done everything you could to make sure that they made a good impression? Weed out the “bad apples”? Which is also a reason for checking references and possibly CRB checks, but that is for another post.

If anyone objects to you taking a photocopy, I would question why. Normally it is enough for you to have seen the passport. If they are a British citizen, with right of abode here, then you might decided to let it go without insisting on it. Although HMRC and the RTI system does need a form of ID from each employee…

But if they do have a visa, then NOT taking a copy could cost you up to £20,000 (since April 2014)!

Don’t think you need long to make that decision really, do you??!