Straightforward Right to Work compliance

Every employer in the UK is required to carry out a Right to Work Check on all prospective employees or volunteers before they start work. A UK Right to Work Check is carried out to confirm whether a prospective employee can legally work in the UK. The employer carries out the check by verifying eligible documents from the employee, for example, a passport or visa.

You can check with an employee has the Right to Work in the UK using a manual or online Right to Work check.

There are 3 key steps in a manually checking an employee’s documents to determine if they have the right to carry out the type of work you are offering:

• Obtain the person’s original documents. A list of acceptable documents can be found in the employers’ right to work checklist here.
• Check them in the presence of the holder (face to face or over a video link). You must check that they are genuine, that they belong to the person presenting them and that the holder is allowed to do the type of work you are offering.
• Take a clear copy and make a record of the date of the check – this can be a hard or an electronic copy.

Some employees may have an immigration status which can be checked online, including those a status under the EU Settlement Scheme. In that case, you may use the Home Office’s online checking service. You should still check that the photograph matches the holder and retain evidence of the check. From 6th April, holders of UK/Irish in-date biometric passports can also be checked using an Identity Service Provider (IDSP) through the digital RtW Scheme.

Under the Immigration, Asylum and Nationality Act 2006 and the Immigration Act 2016, every UK employer has a legal responsibility to ensure that all their employees have the right to work in the UK. If an employer doesn’t comply with their duties around UK Right to Work checks and has “reasonable cause to believe” that an individual was not entitled to work in the UK, they can face serious penalties, including fines of up to £20,000 for each illegal worker employed and a possible prison sentence.

A digital RtW check allows applicants with applicable proof of identity to verify their identity and prove their Right to Work remotely, instead of presenting physical documents to you as an employer. Under the new digital Scheme, an employer can carry out a digital Right to Work check on holders of UK & Irish in-date biometric passports using IDVT from an Identity Service Provider (IDSP). The IDSP will share a report for your records, confirming the authenticity of the document and whether it gives eligibility to work in the UK. Anyone with a UK Visas and Immigration (UKVI) account – including those who applied to the EU Settlement scheme – is also eligible for a digital Right to Work check. They can access their immigration status online through an eVisa and provide a share code to the employer for checking.

The guidance states that a Right to Work check must be carried out on all employees, regardless of their nationality and you should never make assumptions about someone’s eligibility to work in the UK.  You can check the Right to Work status of a British citizen using either a UK passport through the digital scheme or face to face or ask for a combination of other documents from List A of the Home Office UK Right to Work guidance.

At TrustID, we are an industry-leading IDSP and we offer a straightforward, easy to use online Right to Work verification service. Our Right to Work checking software helps to quickly and reliably assess whether the documents you are seeing are genuine and whether they give the holder the Right to Work in the UK. Our IDVT can help whether you make digital or physical document checks. The service is regularly updated in line with the latest guidance, meaning you no longer need to be Right to Work experts and it’s backed up by a leading team of document analysts, fully trained in global identity documents and Home Office Right to Work guidance. Results are returned within 1 working hour, 7 days a week. Our services help you to meet medium and high confidence levels, in line with GPG 45. 

From March 2020, due to the Covid-19 pandemic, Right to Work guidance was temporarily amended to allow employers to checks a candidate’s RtW status using scanned copies or photos of identity documents. You could then arrange a video call and ask the applicant to hold up the original documents to check against the digital copy, record the date you made the check and mark it as “adjusted check undertaken on [insert date] due to Covid-19.”

These measures will come to an end on 1st October 2022.

From 6th April 2022, the Home Office and Disclosure and Barring Services (DBS) allow employers and landlords to use certified Identification Document Validation Technology (IDVT) service providers to carry out digital identity checks on their behalf as part of Right to Work checks. This will allow remote identity checks to continue but with enhanced security. It is highly recommended that employers use an accredited IDSP.

Once you have seen applicable documents from your employee, you must retain a copy them and record the date of the check. You should then store secure, unalterable copies of the documents for the duration of a person’s employment, plus two years after their employment has come to an end. You should be able to produce copies of all relevant documents if requested to do so: if you’re found to be employing a potential illegal worker and you’re unable to produce evidence of a Right to Work Check, you may be liable for a civil penalty.