How Does The Law View Handwriting Analysis?

Federal and provincial Human Rights and Employment Standards legislation are all silent on the use of hand writ ing analysis as a selection tool. So, in Canada and in its provinces, there is noth ing in the acts or codes to say that handwriting analysis cannot be used.

I have not examined the jurisprudence of other countries in this regard, and therefore have to restrict my com ments to Canada. I know, however, that handwriting analysis is used in many western countries as a selection tool and I suspect that most employers are responsible and choose to operate within the law.

If the validity of the practice is ever seriously chal lenged in the courts, I am sure that a great debate would follow about the various types and degrees of validity and how they are deter mined. I'll pass on pre dict ing any outcomes.

Another point: Handwriting analysis is very clean with respect to the usual grounds for discrimination because it seems unable to reveal race, gender, religion, age, creed, fam ily status or many of the other prohib ited areas.

I suppose some day someone might allege employment discrim i nation on the grounds that he or she was denied a job because of handwriting analysis. This would be a tough one to win as there is no current Canadian legisla tion requiring selection tools to be valid. The in dividual would probably have to make a case that one of the pro hibited grounds, e.g. race, religion, etc., was the basis for the dis crim ina tion, and so far, handwriting analysis doesn't seem capa ble of identifying many of these.

As we know, anything is possible and laws do change but an employer could avoid much hassle by ensuring that hand writing analysis is used as one component in a pack age of selection tools as I recommended above.