Invasion of the identity snatchers
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.
And you do need to see the original passport, not a copy of one, which might have been Photoshopped.
However, you can’t just test the ones who “look foreign” – that would be race discrimination and land you in a tribunal!
If anyone objects to you taking a photocopy, I would question why.
If they say they are a British citizen, and feel that they don’t need to prove that they have a right to be here (often with more mature employees), then you need to advise them: HMRC and the RTI system needs proof that each employee on the payroll is a real person, not a fiction made up so that the employer can defraud HMRC …
If you don’t take a copy of their passport / visa, it could cost you up to £20,000!
Don’t think you need long to make that decision really, do you??!
