The digital route is for holders of an in-date UK or Irish passports only.

If you are a holder of an in-date UK or Irish passport and do not wish to have your documents checked digitally, you can have your documents checked manually by meeting in person with your employer or sending the documents by post.

For EU & non-UK national passport holders you must provide a .GOV UK share code in order to prove immigration status and RTW, as passports & IDs can no longer be accepted as proof.

If you are in doubt whether you have received a genuine digital check link, ask the person you are expecting a link from to confirm what you have received was sent by them.

If what you have received appears to be a genuine case of fraud, please report it to www.ukifa.co.uk or www.jobsaware.co.uk.

The IDSP will validate your identity documents and pass the results of the check to your potential employer. Your data will be handled in accordance with The Data Protection Act 2018.

Your validated information will then be kept in your employment file for the duration of your employment and for two years after the employment has come to an end.

Should you wish to see the information held in relation to you, you have a right to make a request for a copy. You also have a right to request the deletion of the information held in relation to you. If you would like a copy of the information held or wish to be deleted, contact the relevant organisation to make a request.

You have a right to lodge a complaint with the Information Commissioner's Office (ICO) if you think your request was not processed correctly.

You should report all lost or stolen documents – such as passports, driving licenses, plastic cards, cheque books – to the relevant organisation and notify the company that completed the check.

The UK Identity Fraud Advisory (UKIFA) can also assist if you are concerned about identity fraud or have a concern relating to identity fraud.

Scroll to the bottom of this page and click on Report an Issue.

You will need to complete a separate check with each recruitment agency you register with, as it is a requirement for the individual agency to carry out a check. The check conducted cannot be shared with other agencies and/or employers.

If you are a holder of an in-date UK or Irish passport, your documents can be checked either face-to-face or digitally.

UK or Irish workers who do not hold an in-date passport can only have their documents checked face-to-face.

For EU & non-EU workers, you must provide a share code to verify your status on the .GOV website.

If you are entering a permanent role, it is your potential employer’s responsibility to complete the checks.

This will vary between IDSPs and will depend on the relationship between you, your potential employer and the IDSP as data controllers or processors.

Depending on the relationship, IDSPs may immediately remove the data after passing it to your potential employer or they may retain the data for their own purposes for a certain length of time.

Regardless of where a particular IDSP lies on this spectrum, they or your potential employer have an obligation to inform you or make available details of how long they will retain your data, for what purpose, and on what legal basis they are doing so under The Data Protection Act 2018.

If you have concerns about your data during the recruitment process, you can report these to the ICO, UKIFA on www.ukifa.co.uk or JobsAware on www.jobsaware.co.uk.

If you have any issues with the way your data is handled, please refer to your employer in the first instance. If you do not hear back, a complaint can be logged with the ICO.