Long story short: I was offered a role in a new company. It did not require a DBS nor was it in any regulated sectors. My conviction is spent and has been for years. Once I got into the onboarding process, a 'vetting' company contacted me wanting to know previous names/addresses etc. My name change was quite recent so I have not built up enough years with this new name to be able to circumvent these unfair questions. This could have led to the possibility of my previous identity being disclosed and it would not take long for them to find the odd internet story here or there, despite my best efforts at playing 'wack-a-mole' with Google. I assessed the risk as being too high so I withdrew. Thankfully I was able to keep my original job. Has anyone else had experience of these sorts of low-level vetting processes? Did your previous name come up? And did they then 'dig deeper' and pass on all this to the employer?

BTW - I know Unlock is doing its very best when it comes to lobbying government about the unfair and unjust impact of the google effect but now with AI turbocharging this whole arena and basically offering any HR team an extremely powerful, free background checker, the need for the ROA to be brought into the 21st Century - and applied without exception to these tech giants - is more pressing than ever.

RM