Can employers demand to know what an employee’s religion is or what sexuality they are?
Employers do not have the automatic right to ask an employee about any of these matters. If an employee has a complaint, for example about harassment, the complainant does not have to disclose their sexuality or their religion. This is because discrimination can also be unlawful where, for example, a manager wrongly perceives someone to be gay, and discriminates against that person because of this perception. In such a case, the employee is still being discriminated against on the grounds of sexual orientation; it just happens in this case that the manager’s perception is wrong about the employee’s sexual orientation. Harassment may also take place where the behaviour towards a person is based on a particular sexual orientation, even if it known that the person is not of that particular sexual orientation. The key point is that the behaviour is on the ground of sexual orientation (see English v Thomas Sanderson Blinds, Advisory Bulletin 547). However, employers may need to probe into s
