Union calls for ICO investigation into Lloyds’ use of staff bank data during pay talks

Editorial

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Earlier this month, it emerged that Lloyds compared the transaction data of around 36,000 employees with accounts at the bank to the wider public.

The group – which is made up of Lloyds, Halifax and Bank of Scotland – looked at that data, along with the saving rates and salary increases of low paid employees – and compared them to its customers.

According to the Financial Times, the Accord union claimed in correspondence with Lloyds that, on reviewing the account data, the bank “concluded we are more financially resilient than the general public. This was used to justify a lower pay award.”

Lloyds defended the practice, stating: “In these situations, any insights used are always aggregated and anonymised to ensure both compliance with important data protection regulations and to support our common practice of using data to underpin our decision making.”

Now, another union, Affinity, has written to the Information Commissioner, arguing that the fact that data was aggregated and anonymised “does not mean that those activates are exempt from the Data Protection Act”.

Says the letter: “The data was taken from the personal accounts of employees and their spouses or partners without their express permission. Lloyds had no reason to access that data other than to justify its proposed pay increase. That’s not a legitimate reason under the Data Protection Act.”

This, writes, Affinity general secretary Mark Brown, “needs to be investigated as a matter of priority”.

Affinity – which is not recognised by Lloyds – has also taken aim at “in-house lap dogs” Accord and Unite unions.

“Instead of breaking off pay negotiations to tell their members what Lloyds had done, Accord and Unite agreed to the pay increases instead,” says Affinity.