Well I hope it’s not also happening in the USA. Your Constitution might give some protection.

Not that there aren’t blacklists there, here and everywhere. They are usually just hidden and more informal.

This one exemplifies the banality of the new “repression met with craven submissiveness” mood that is becoming such a feature of life in the UK.

But, how would you know you are on it?

Couldn’t you just ask? Under the data protection act, surely they’re obliged to tell you what they’ve got on you? (Failing that, I imagine you could always pretend to be an employer vetting you,or have a friend do it at work.)

I agree with Nathaniel, though, libel laws are the way to go. The system here is set up very much in favour of the complainant, plus they’ve said it whether or not that’s why you didn’t get the job. Heck, you might be able to get the job and still sue them. If you know that the company you applied to work at has used the register, and you know what it says, I think you can pretty reliably infer what was said about you.

I am a bit cheered by your optimism that it’s just another crackpot scheme. I sincerely hope that this would result in them getting sued to bankruptcy…..

But, how would you know you are on it? How easy would it be to prove you didn’t get a job because you were on it?

Carol. I agree. Progress is going into reverse.

Andrew. I know the feeling.

To be fair, though, you see stuff like this all the time. Like the Frogmarching To A Cashpoint fine thing — it’s a nice idea from an ultra-conservative nutter point of view, but it’s surely never actually going to happen? It’s simply not tenable. The first time someone with some money finds out that they were refused a job on the basis that some guy nobody has any reason to trust says they did something that nobody can prove, the whole thing will end up in court, and that person will be awarded a huge stack of cash. Surely any company stupid enough to risk that for the fringe benefits of having incrementally more trustworthy (or at least less detectably dishonest) staff is doomed anyway?

Honestly, I’m not 100% confident that it will work out that way, but if I got worked up about every stupid idea that this country comes up with I’d never get anything done (and end up on some kind of blacklist). I’m forced to limit my anger to things that are really happening — heaven knows there are enough as it is to keep me in hissy fits until I die.

The scary bit is that all you need is to be accused of something to go on the list. Out of boredom I could accuse a dozen people and destroy their lives. Amazing. How can there be no recourse?

Being treated as guilty without committing a crime is mind-bendingly crazy.

Sadly this shows another example of how, as a nation, we have become obsessed with everything being put on a database. When this is taken in the context of council surveillance teams, laws making thoughts illegal and so on, it really takes 1984 to a new dimension.

I think Orwell was being too generous. I honestly dont think he fully realised just how far this once great nation can go.