Access Information Your Employer Holds About You

Author: Matthew Strawbridge

Companies like information. Knowledge, they say, is power. So a business with a large pool of facts at its disposal must surely be a powerful one! This logic has some merit when applied to the business’s market, its competitors and its own products. However, when it comes to living people, there are laws governing how facts about them can be collected, stored and processed. This article looks at how you can defend your privacy by accessing the details held about you at work.

What Information Does Your Employer Hold?

There are three possible sources for the data your employer holds about you: yourself, your job and external sources.

The first of these is yourself. Any data that you have been asked to supply will be held in your file. If there is anything that you do not wish to be recorded, or consider to be unnecessary, you should consider withholding it.

The second data source is your job. In the course of your career, various facts relating to you will emerge. You will have appraisals. You may have extended periods of sick leave. You may be promoted, moved between departments, demoted, fired, rehired or disciplined. All these things are likely to flow into your personnel file, which will keep expanding until you leave the company to get another job or you retire.

Finally, facts about you may come from external sources. If your referees were contacted as part of the hiring process, any written references they supplied about you may have been kept. If colleagues or customers have made official complaints about you, these could also be on file.

The good news is that you don’t have to guess what data is held about you: under the Data Protection Act, you have the right to find out exactly what details your employer holds about you.

Workplace Privacy Checker

Describe what your employer is monitoring or asking for and find out whether it is lawful under UK privacy and data protection law.

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Accessing Your Details

The simplest way to get access to your records is to ask for them. If you have a personnel manager in your organisation then they are probably the right person to contact in the first instance. If you don’t know who to contact, ask your line manager to find out for you.

If the human resources department in your company does not receive many requests from employees for their records then they may try to dissuade you from accessing them or say they cannot provide them. Don’t let this put you off. There is no grey area here – you have a legal right to access your information, regardless of how difficult it may be for a disorganised business to pull your records together for you. All they can do is charge a minimal fee for access; they cannot deny it to you.

Your situation may be slightly different. ask a question below ↓ and our editorial team will reply with our advice.

Changing Your Data

Having accessed your data, you also have the right to correct it if it is inaccurate. Your employer must act on these changes, amending its files so that they are correct. You may also have the right to ask for data about you to be deleted if you have reason to believe that it is not being used for the purpose for which it was originally collected, or if the business does not require this personal information in order to maintain its relationship with you.

Don’t be afraid to ask to see your employee records and other data held about you at work. After all, it is your data, and you have the legal right to see and correct it. If more workers did this regularly, privacy in the workplace would be less of a concern.

EU General Data Protection Regulation

The EU General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) superseded the UK Data Protection Act 1998 on May 25, 2018. The new policy expands the rights of individuals to control how their personal data is collected and processed. It places a range of new obligations on organisations to be more accountable for data protection.

Organisations are obliged to have technical and procedural measures in place to safeguard the personal information they hold. You can contact the ICO if you think you have cause to complain .

The Next Step

Now that you have read through the advice above, you might want to put it into practice. Our Workplace Privacy Checker lets you describe what your employer is monitoring or asking for and find out whether it is lawful under UK privacy and data protection law. Try it now →

Showing 20 of 76 questions

Ask Employee Privacy Rights a Question

EmployeePrivacyRights Editor 18/05/2026 at 9:17 am

@Bluegrey19 You don't have an automatic right to remove your file and store it yourself, as the records belong to your employer and they're the data controller under UK GDPR. That said, they do have a legal duty to keep personal data secure, so an unlocked cabinet accessible to all staff is a fair concern to raise. Put your worries in writing to HR or the incoming manager and ask them to lock the cabinet with restricted key access. You can also submit a SAR to see exactly what's held about you.

Bluegrey19 05/01/2024 at 7:19 pm

Hi I’m looking for some advice. Our practice manager is going on maternity leave soon. We have staff members in place to take on the roles. However we have a cabinet in the office which holds all our personal information/files- this is not locked ( the office can be locked when not in use but all have access to the keys if need be) Am I allowed to request my personal information/folder to be removed from this area and put in my locker which only I have access to. To ensure others cannot ever trespass and view my confidential/sensitive information, as I have concerns about this and do not trust this will be adhered to at all times.
Many thanks in advance.

Su 01/07/2023 at 10:13 pm

I was bullied and harassed by the head of the office, he then gave me a very low-performance score to prevent me from getting me performance reward and promotion. I sent a subject access request to my employer for a copy of my original annual performance review form for 5 years when I worked with this officer. They were unwilling to give me a copy of the original document but gave me the scores for each year only and claim they have meet the criteria of UKGDPR. I had reported this to ICO but ICO replied that because my employer belongs to the consulate catalog so ICO cannot do anything to my employer. I reported this to the headquarter of the country my employer is from, and the response from the HQ says, the consulate is required to follow UK law. So basically my grievance has nowhere to go when my right has clearly been damaged. Any suggestions, please?

Ella 23/05/2023 at 2:53 pm

Hi, I was dismissed from work end of January, with out any discussion or any notice, I asked for a copy of my supervision and the the decision of ending my employment, they give me a paper which is not accurate, but no supervision copy, which anyway was in disagreement with the decision, and all this it happened after I complained about work conditions.
Also I specify that I was in my provisional period.

I asked again for the copies of my certificates and supervision and I had no answer from them.
My question is: what to do next?

Thank you.

Concerned 15/03/2021 at 5:50 pm

Is my company’s Internal Audit department allowed to see my personnel file without my permission??? They are conducting an audit of our HR department and have been given my file to review.

Lizzie 18/01/2021 at 12:50 pm

Asking in behalf of my son who has been asked to leave his previous employer 12 months ago, due to a fb post of 8 years ago. Can he request a copy of his HR files as he feels victimised & excluded from returning to the company.

Robert 22/10/2020 at 4:04 am

I called up my works health place to ask for advice on covid. Now my employer has asked the medical centre for call records is this legal plaese

HP 08/10/2020 at 5:47 am

Hi,
I have asked my ex employer several times to remove me from their website. They keep ex employees in ‘About Us’ to up-profile the company despite making me redundant. My photo and a brief description about me remains as me being part of the Senior Team. This is really annoying as I now work for another company.

HeDa 14/09/2020 at 3:46 pm

Hi, I have recently been referred to OH by my employer. Upon the telephone consultation the clinician read out my employers referral letter which had many inaccuracies in it. I was told my the clinician that my employer should have gone through the letter with me first, is this a legal requirement? Does this come under the data protection act? Also they told me that I could ask for a copy from my employer-upon doing so they told me this is not their normal process. I am under the belief that I am within my rights to request to see my personnel file which should contain this document, am I right in thinking this and which act of law says that? Thank you

Jay 09/07/2020 at 11:55 am

I wish to obtain all information that a former employer holds about me, including occupational health assessment reports. I left the employer just under 12 months ago, are they required to keep such information and, if so, are they obliged to share them with me?

lc 14/05/2020 at 11:05 am

My former employer of two years ago has been sharing my data with a third party, in the form of private insurance. I received a letter from said private insurance stating my health benefits had been renewed by my previous employer and are now active. Much to my shock, I logged into the private insurance website and my benefits from previous employer are sure enough active. It's really concerning and feel a great breach in terms of GDPR that they are mishandling my personal data and don't even know if I am still employed with them or not. What sort of action can I take? Many thanks.

AnnieT 11/10/2019 at 4:00 pm

Am I entitled to copies of HR policies following dismissal?

Quinny 19/09/2019 at 3:01 pm

Is my line manager allowed to write just anyone’s name as next of kin without my consent

Crewe 30/05/2019 at 10:42 pm

Hi, I have an ex employee who is requesting all emails sent and received from the computer they worked on for the 2 weeks they were there, the email they used was not a personal one but our normal sales@ address. Are they able to access this as some of the emails contain delicate information from customers I.e orders placed plus some of the emails in were just general advertising so not clear what emails I should produce

Crewe 30/05/2019 at 10:41 pm

Shell3219 02/03/2019 at 2:22 pm

I believe my employer maybe using an external company to gain surveillance on me as I have recently had a few issues and my sickness record shows this. When I request my information from employer and ask for all external information. Will they provide this if they have instructed somebody.

K 28/09/2018 at 8:20 pm

I have just left my employer. We had to complete training for our work in our own time but we're told we had to pay £25 if we wanted the training certified.
As my new employer wishes to know that I have completed these trainings successfully, I am asking my ex employer (agency) to confirm my training record with them which they must have in order to have given me shifts as an Health Care Assistant. Can they refuse?

Ncw 28/06/2018 at 10:27 pm

My ex employer withholds medical conformation documents that I need for my new job, every time I ask for them he gives me an excuse. I have asked him several times and now he is ignoring me. I could easily ask for new ones from the medical centre but where I’m from I would have to pay for it, just wondering if I’m in the right to be asking for them back?

NeilM 27/06/2018 at 8:39 pm

My employer tracks the vehicles i drive. Can I get the data the company provided to me?

Jaime 02/06/2018 at 8:02 am

I had a back problem at work 2 years ago, where I was seen by specialists, physiotherapists, occupational health. Was also given a drs note to say find me alternative work to what I was doing. My new supervisor has now moved me to another job and was not aware of my problems. When I asked about my paperwork etc.. Was told there is no paperwork for me having back problems. I've sent him a copy of the occupational health file I had kept but have nothing else. Can my multi million pound company just lose all the paperwork I have had?? If so who can be held accountable because it looks like I have to go through the whole process again of being made to feel like I'm lieing and being told I will be sacked on medical grounds even though I've had no time of or any other problems with my back for over 2 years by being in the job I was moved from. Any help would be much appreciated. Thank you

Show All 76 Questions

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