August

A Chinese court convicted British fraud investigator Peter Humphrey and his wife, Yu Yingzeng, a naturalized US citizen, of illegally obtaining personal information.

The husband and wife team ran a China-based consulting ChinaWhys Co, that specialized in providing risk advisory services to multinational companies doing business in China. Prosecutors alleged that the couple violated the law's prohibition on illegal obtainment by collecting 256 personal information records. According to prosecutors, ChinaWhys purchased this information for RMB 800 to RMB 2000 (about US $130 to $325) per record and used it in background investigation reports prepared for ChinaWhys' clients.

The Home Office recently made changes to existing legislation to provide a legal definition of ‘work with children.’  These changes consolidate the existing prescribed purposes (a role or activity set out in Police Act regulations which provides eligibility for Enhanced criminal records checks to be submitted) relating to working with children, and bring them together into a single prescribed purpose called ‘work with children’.

This allows for Enhanced criminal records checks to be made.  The new legislation can be found on the legislation.gov website:
SI 2013|2669
SI 2014|955 
It gives more clarity – for example it includes a reference to special guardians, who although previously eligible for enhanced criminal record checks courtesy of the role, had not been previously named. As with a prospective adopter, this would also include any persons aged 18 or over living in the same household as the special guardian.

Here’s a summary of the new prescribed purpose:

• Activities that would have met the definition of regulated activity with children before the introduction of the Protection of Freedoms Act (PoFA) in September 2012
• Activities that meet the definition of regulated activity with children
• Adoptive parents, special guardians and any of their household members aged 18 and over
• Registration for child minding|day care and any household members aged 16 and over
• Registration under Part 3 of the Childcare Act 2006 and any household members aged 16 and over
• Foster carers and any household members aged 18 and over*
• Private foster carers and any household members aged 16 and over
• Household members aged 16 and over of individuals who are in regulated activity with children, or would have been in regulated activity with children before the introduction of PoFA in September 2012 and live on a school site; or are working and living in an Further Education (FE) institution or 16-19 Academy
• Working in an FE institution or 16-19 Academy where the normal duties of that work involves regular contact with children
• Activities that would have been regulated activity with children before the introduction of PoFA in September 2012 if they met the period condition but are only carried out infrequently • Activities that would be regulated activity with children if they met the period condition but are only carried out infrequently
• Registration under Part 2 (Establishments) and Part 4 (Social Care Workers) of the Care Standards Act 2000

Eligibility for accessing children’s barred list checks has not been affected by these changes. The eligibility guide and the DBS child workforce document have been updated to reflect this change.
*In line with the Department for Education fostering regulations.
 

State legislatures are enacting laws limiting employers' ability to access the social media accounts of their employees. Thus far in 2014, four more states -Louisiana,Oklahoma,TennesseeandWisconsin- have enacted social media legislation, bringing the total number of states with such legislation to 16.

Generally, state social media laws bar employers from requiring or requesting that an employee or applicant provide log-in credentials for his|her personal social media account. Some of these state social media laws also prohibit an employer from requiring an employee to add another employee or supervisor to a social media account "friends" or contacts list or to access personal social media accounts in the employer's presence.

Many of the state social media laws also prohibit employers from basing adverse employment action on an employee's refusal to comply with an employer's request for social media account access. Notably, all four of the recently-enacted laws allow employers to monitor the social media activity of employees when employees access their social media accounts through employer-provided IT systems.