We will keep your employment record for six years after the date your employment ends. If your employment ends but then restarts again less than six years later, we will restart the clock. In other words, your employment record will be retained until it has been a full six years since you were last employed by us. This is a common scenario and allows us to provide a seamless service.
Our lawful basis for this retention policy is firstly because we have a legal obligation under the Income Tax (Pay As You Earn) Regulations 2003. This law requires us to retain PAYE records for a period of three years from the end of the tax year that they relate to.
Outside of that requirement, we believe it’s in your and our legitimate interests to retain your employment record for six years. There are a few reasons behind this:
- Service: it allows us to provide an extended post-employment service – for example, access to your pay advice slips, job references and answering queries. Employment is our service and it doesn’t stop with a P45.
- Tax advice and support: we want to be able to support with any tax assessments that you are subject to in future. The nature of contracting means that you’ll often have multiple employers and maybe even become a director of your own limited company, so it can get complex. It’s not uncommon for ex-employees to ask us for old income and tax records to support with these cases. HMRC has a maximum of six years to raise a tax assessment against someone, as per the Taxes Management Act 1970.
- Contractual disputes: the Prescription and Limitation (Scotland) Act 1973 and Limitation Act 1980 allow a period of five and six years respectively in which to bring a contractual-related claim to court. Of course we hope this need never arises, but if it did, it would be helpful to all parties to have your employment record to hand and for us to be able to protect our position in the event of legal proceedings.
You have the right to object to any processing that is based on legitimate interests. To let us know that you object, please email hello@key.co.com.
Learn more
When you interact with us during your employment, some additional data processing will take place. For example, this happens when we speak on the phone or you contact us on social media – the type of processing depends on the type of contact we have with you. You can learn all about this in the next section of our policy.