Criminal sanction for forwarding CVs
The Information Commissioner’s Office (ICO) has criminalised and fined a recruitment agent for emailing the CVs of 26 job applicants to his new employer.
This came to light when the recruitment agent’s former employer discovered that candidates were being submitted for roles by the new employer as well as itself.
In terms of available defences by the recruitment agent, these were of no use, as the original employer had not given its consent, and there was no business need for the processing.
This amounted to a criminal offence under s. 5 of the Data Protection Act 1998 . The individual was fined £573, plus prosecution costs and a victim surcharge








