What should I do as a principal to fulfill the identification duty?

Everyone should be able to identify himself/herself with a valid identification card. That also counts for when this person is working. As a principal, you're obliged to check the identity of your employees. Before an employee is hired, you need to verify the original identification card. You save a copy of it in your administration. When the identification card of an employee expires, you don't need to make a new copy.

Verification identity of employees by principal

For you as a principal, the identification duty consists out of 3 parts:

• Verification duty

You need to verify the identification card of employees for authenticity features en validity when that person takes up duty. 

• Storage duty

You will need to save a copy of all your employees' identification cards.

• Care duty

This means that you need facilitate your employees to be able to fulfill the identification duty when controlled. Your employees need to carry a valid identification card during work as well. You need to alert your employees to this. This counts for all people who are in your direct service, but also for hired workers.

Verification duty valid identification card

At the commencement of employment by a new employee, you have to ask for a valid identification card. The employee then needs to show the original document. This could be a passport, an ID card or an identity card with a Dutch residence permit. When controlling identification cards, you will have to pay attention to:

• the passport photo: does it correspond with the person that's in front of you?
• features: do the aforementioned physical traits like height and age correspond?
• signature: for verification, let the employee write down his signature in sight;
• nationality: is the nationality mentioned? The identification duty does also count for foreign employees;
• validity of the document: has the expiration date not yet been reached?

A driver's license and a statement of the tax authorities (Belastingdienst) with social security number does not mention a nationality. Therefore, these are not valid identification cards for the identification duty. 

Storage duty identification card

You need to make a clear copy of the identification card. Document number, passport photo and social service number (BSN) need to be readable. You save this copy in your administration for optional checks, for instance by the Inspection of Social Affairs and Employment. You will need to save the copy until at least 5 years after the calendar year in which the employee has resigned of employment.

Expired identification card of employee

You have made a copy of the identification card when it was still valid. When the identification card of an employee expires, you do not need to replace it. 

Identification duty for the temporary worker

Are you hiring a temporary worker? Then you will also need to check his/her original identification card before he/she will go to work. You cannot save a copy of the identification card in your administration considering the fact that you're not the employer of temporary workers; that's the employment bureau. However: does the temporary worker have a nationality of one of the countries outside of the European Economic Area? Then you will need to save it for a duration of 5 years. You will also need to verify if the person is in the position to work.