Employers who want to prevent the possibility of a fine for hiring an undocumented worker should do right-to-work checks. Although such checks are not required, the Home Office recommends that “all potential workers, including British nationals,” be screened to prevent discrimination.
As a result, inspections of passports or other forms of identification are now routinely included in the employment process of businesses all around the country.
To carry out these checks there are three different ways:
- Online right-to-work checks, in which the employer searches the Home Office immigration database for the worker.
- Manual right-to-checks, in which employer examines physical identification of documents of employee.
- During the pandemic, virtual right-to-work checks were established, allowing a photo or scan of an ID to be used rather than inspecting the physical documents.
What is changing from 6 April 2022?
Workers will not be able to accept the physical documents when they will be conducting right to work checks for people who hold Frontier Worker Permits and Biometric Residence Permits. In fact, they will need to use the free online service provided by Home Office, which was previously optional. This online service is accessed by worker who gives share code to the employer which ends up enabling the employer to get an access and retain evidence of the worker’s status.
Changes from 6 April 2022:
- Migrants with a residence permit or standard work cannot be checked manually; they can only be checked online. People who have biometric residence permission and biometric residence card are affected by this change.
- Virtual Right-to-work checks were the adjusted type which means that individuals will have to provide hard copies in ode to complete the check. They will officially expire because Virtual Right-to-work checks was always supposed to be a temporary solution to the pandemic, however as the pandemic worsened, they were extended numerous times. Home Office released the statement that date of adjusted checks will be extended to 30 September 2022 which does ensure that workers have sufficient time to establish relationship with identity service providers.
- As an alternative to the adjusted checks, a new system of digital checks is being deployed to replace the adjusted checks. Applicants still submit pictures of their personal document instead of bringing in the original documents, however rather than a copy or scan “Identity Document Validation Technology” is used.
The new digital checks are directed at nationals of Ireland and the United Kingdom. Non-immigrants, most workers, cannot use online checks since their information does not appear in Home Office immigration records. Employers would have gone back to manually checking most of their new workers if the modified checks had been just eliminated by the authorities without being replaced. A remote option is maintained with this new digital validation method.
According to the employment association, which significantly has expertise in digital checks, asserts that “Home Office charge for digital checks, which varies from £ 1.45 to £ 70 per check”. Digital checks do not appear to be mandatory, therefore corporations who were concerned about the cost can opt for manual checks. So, in a nutshell, right-to-work checks on most of the migrants will be online and checks on Irish or British nationals will be either digital (not free) or manual and free.
For expert advice and assistance with Right to Work checks or any related work visa or immigration application, contact us on 0203 959 3335
