Did you know that under Kenyan law, you have the right to see what your former employer wrote about you in a reference letter?
That right was tested and upheld last year when the Office of the Data Protection Commissioner ruled in favor of Margaret Nzula, a former employee of United Winners DT Sacco, who had been denied copies of reference letters the Sacco had written about her to a prospective employer, Shirika DT Sacco, where she had applied for a job and was not hired.
When Nzula asked United Winners for copies of the letters, the Sacco refused, saying they were confidential communications between employers.
She filed a complaint with the ODPC. The Commissioner found that United Winners had violated her rights under the Data Protection Act of 2019, ordered the Sacco to release the letters, and awarded Nzula KES 250,000 in compensation.
The ruling rests on Section 26 of the Data Protection Act 2019, which gives every person the right to access personal data held about them by any organization.
The ODPC found that this right is not limited to basic identifying information. Opinions, assessments, and evaluations written about a person also count as personal data. A reference letter, the Commissioner determined, belongs to the person it describes.
The argument that such letters are protected by confidentiality between employers did not hold. The ODPC found that internal HR conventions cannot override a statutory right and that no exemption under the Act covers employer-to-employer reference communications.
The ruling does not bar employers from giving honest or even negative references. What it removes is the assumption that those references are invisible to the person being assessed.
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The Act also gives individuals the right under Section 28 to demand correction of information that is false or misleading, which means a damaging reference can be legally challenged if it does not reflect the facts.
For employees who suspect a former employer may be quietly blocking their career prospects, the Nzula case is a reminder that the law provides a remedy and that remedy has teeth.
For HR departments across Kenya, the message is plain. What you write about a former employee can be demanded back by that employee, and if you refuse, a compensation order may follow.
The case has created a direct precedent that what an employer writes about a former employee in confidence is not, under Kenyan law, entirely confidential.
