Modern Slavery is a term used to covers slavery, servitude, forced or compulsory labour and human trafficking. All of these offences occur when one person deprives another person of their liberty, exploiting them for personal or commercial gain.
As a business owner, its common practice for you to undertake detailed due diligence of suppliers to ensure that they are complying with The Modern Slavery Act 2015 – enabling above all – not in breach of any of the above definition.
Inefficiencies in your checks can cause delays in recruitment processes, financial loss and unnecessary risk to your business. Integrating Credas ID verification software will provide complete confidence that the labour used in your supply chain.
Credas’ award-winning facial recognition software allows your business to run ID checks in real-time and a matter of seconds, enabling you to verify and confirm that the ID matches the actual person – enabling you to comply with modern slavery act regulatory checks and recruit new employees with confidence.
Our document storage ensures your business creates a modern-day slavery audit trail that assures you are compliant with regulators, and that your employees’ strictly confidential information is safe and secure.
Frequently asked questions, answered
Under the UK Modern Slavery Act businesses over a certain size are required to release an annual statement outlining the measures your company is taking to prevent modern slavery and human trafficking.
Designed by the UK Parliament, the Modern Slavery Act is a consolidation of existing offences legislation that provides organisations with a new set of requirements in regards to the way they do business and manage their supply chain.
The Modern Slavery Act came into force on 29 October 2015 as a way to introduce updated guidelines for businesses on how to report human trafficking and slavery.
There is a need for adequate legislation, to hold employers accountable for the legitimacy of their labour. Far from being a distant notion, modern slavery is a global issue that the Modern Slavery Act sets off to tackle.
Increasing accountability throughout the supply chain of organisations and protecting workers were the main aims of the Modern Slavery Act. As an added benefit, compliance with the Act is a way to inspire greater confidence amongst customers about the products and services you offer.
According to the guidelines provided by the government, each organisation in a group structure is required to comply with the legislation and produce a Modern Slavery policy that’s updated each year.
In addition to having a total turnover of £36,000,000 or over, you are required to comply with the Modern Slavery Act if you supply goods or services and carry out any part of your business in the UK, as a corporate body or a partnership organisation.
You should note that this could apply to not-for-profit and charity organisations who meet the above points, as the new rules don’t make distinctions based on the end purpose of the profits.
If your company falls under the Modern Slavery Act, you are required to produce an updated Modern Slavery policy each year, in which you highlight ‘the steps the organisation has taken during the financial year to ensure that slavery and human trafficking is not taking place’1 in your own business as well as any of your supply chains.
While there are no official guidelines of the format and contents of such policy set out by the Modern Slavery Act, the UK government advises that you include information on the structure of your organisation, your slavery and human trafficking due diligence processes and the training available to staff on the subject.
You should also emphasise any high-risk parts of your business and supply chains where modern slavery is most likely to occur, break down the steps you are taking to manage these areas and the performance indicators you use to measure how effective your organisation is in preventing slavery and human trafficking.