How much information can an employer ask me to provide in a job application?

Agencies should only collect the personal information they need to carry out their functions and activities. This means that they can’t collect information about you for the sake of it – the information has to be relevant to what they’re doing. 

In practice this means that if you are applying for a job, the agency can ask you to provide any information which is relevant to the job. 

So, for example, they could ask you to provide information about any health conditions you might have which would prevent you from doing the job, or your immigration status to see if you can work legally in this country.

However, if the agency asked you to provide your complete medical record for the previous five years they’d likely be breaching the Privacy Act (as it’s hard to see why it’d be necessary for them to collect that level of detail).

Job applicants also do not have to give employers information about certain types of criminal offending. The Criminal Records (Clean Slate) Act 2004 (external link)sets out what criminal offending a person does not have to disclose, and under what conditions. Job applicants should check what they do and do not have to disclose.

As another example, it is unusual for employers to need financial information about applicants, and in most cases they should not request it. If an employer believes a job involves a significant financial risk (for example, a position that handles accounts or payments), they could seek consent for a credit check from the applicant. But the employer would have to justify it is necessary to collect it.

And a further example is the drug testing of job candidates. This may be justifiable for staff working in areas where safety is a real issue (for example, public transport, or operation of heavy machinery) but it would be much more difficult to justify testing office workers.

Updated October 2025